Thousand Mile Wish
by arysani
Summary: In "As You Wish", they made a promise to each other. But betrayals and blights change people...is there anything left to salvage? Elissa and Nathaniel rediscover each other, and try to come to terms with their shared pasts and their uncertain futures.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This longer fic suggests a familiarity that appears in "As You Wish", its predecessor. While I would hope you'd read that first, should you desire to dive right in, all you need to really know, I suppose, is that Nathaniel and Elissa were betrothed just before he left the last time for the Free Marches, and he was gone for two years before the events of the Cousland Origins story. Their betrothal was their choice, rather than an arrangement, which Bryce and Eleanor greeted with pleased relief (as their daughter had been rather...uncooperative in terms of being appropriately matched) and Rendon appeared, at best, mildly indifferent, as he seemed to hope for more for his eldest son, but could not vocalize a good reason to deny them their troth. Nathaniel promised to return in two years and marry her, at which point he would take over his father's garrison in preparation to step into the arl's place. Fate, however, had other plans.

Disclaimer: Bioware owns all.

* * *

_9:32 Dragon, Vigil's Keep_

The prisoner was sleeping when she went down to see who everyone had their knickers in a twist about. Took four Wardens to bring him down, they said. She was, frankly, expecting someone the size and shape of a golem, and was briefly disappointed in her discovery that it was nothing more than a man.

"Rise and shine, princess," she said aloud, and tapped one dagger on the bars, ringing it between them.

"Commander," Varel cautioned in a low voice, and she just shrugged one shoulder.

"He's in the cell, Varel, what can he do to me?"

The voice that replied was straight out of the past, and she froze, her face still turned away.

"Well for one thing, I've quite the reach, and it would be easy to kill you now that you've made yourself so readily available." There was more gravel in it than she remembered, but maybe the huskiness was the result of sleep or lack of water. She squinted her eyes shut, and did not reply to Varel's soft 'Commander?' as she counted backwards from twenty.

She turned her head to look at him, and it was a measure of a moment before he recognized her.

"Oh, Maker, no," he said, and backed away from the bars. There was no stealth to the slide of his feet across the stone floor, the slap of his hands and the soft bump of his shoulders as they hit the masonry at the back of the cell in his retreat. "Please, Andraste," he said very quietly, his voice almost breaking.

"It's no nightmare, Nathaniel," she said, trying for firmness and barely able to get the words past her clenched teeth. _This isn't happening. Maker, Andraste, what did I do that made me deserve this?_

"You know this man?" Varel looked at her, curious.

She clenched her jaw for a moment, and almost laughed at the unfairness of it all. "I'll do you one better, Varel. I still have the promise token he gave me when we were betrothed," she said bitterly. She had no reason to share that information, and yet still it spilled from her lips. Varel merely raised his eyebrows. He had known this woman for a mere two days, and while her reputation preceded her, he always felt those things were secondary to getting a real impression of her himself. That impression was of someone without a goal – he'd seen it many times before. A task, once completed, leaves a person feeling adrift. It was this word which described the woman before him.

And now he knew, in his gut, that they had stumbled upon something better left buried. He reached out his hand to hers, and pressed a key into her palm.

"Do what you must, Commander," he said, and with a quick nod of his head, sent the guards out before him.

She watched as the door slammed shut behind him, and she was left standing there, her back to the cells, the key clutched loosely in her hand. She uncurled her fingers slowly, and looked down at it. Turning her head to the side, she saw that Nathaniel had slid down the wall, and was now curled up tightly, his arms wrapped around his knees, his gaze unfocused and concentrating on the lines of mortar between the blocks of stone.

She walked over to the small table the guards sat at, and faced the cell. She turned the key over in her hand and then set it on the table, and began spinning it in a slow circle with her forefinger.

"Stop that. Stop making that noise."

"What are you doing here, Nathaniel?"

He wasn't looking at her, and his voice was heartbreakingly flat. "Rather I should be asking what you are doing here. This is my home. Imagine my surprise to return to it and find it occupied by _Grey Wardens_."

"The king awarded the arling to us as a reward. It was considered property of the Crown considering the acts of treason Rendon Howe committed against Ferelden."

"My father was no traitor," he insisted, this time with a little venom, but still he did not look at her.

"Stop being a fool, Nathaniel. Ask anyone. Don't take my word for it."

He was quiet for a time, and she started to spin the key again, but abruptly cut herself off. Instead, she used her finger to trace around it on the bumpy wood, buffed to a shine from years of use.

"Once upon a time, your word meant a great deal to me."

She watched her finger trace around the curves of the key, down the straight bar. "And once upon a time I had parents and a life to look forward to. I had a sister and a nephew, and friends I had known since childhood. Once upon a time is how fairytales begin, and this is no fairytale."

He snorted lightly. "Of that, I am completely assured."

"I'll ask you again. What are you doing here Nathaniel?"

She looked up just as he turned to look at her, and met his eyes. "I came here to kill you."

Her chest ached, a quick, sharp feeling that stole her breath before she could reply. "Sorry I couldn't make that happen for you."

"No guarantees I would have carried it out, if I had caught your face in the moonlight."

"I wasn't even here when you were captured. Five seconds of overheard conversation could have told you that. Now tell me the real reason."

"I wanted some of my family's things back. Nothing more," he admitted, and looked away again.

"You could have just asked."

"Yes, because the request of a traitor's son is held in such high esteem."

"If you had waited, I would have given you whatever you wanted, whatever I could."

His eyes were on her again, she could feel it. "Is that so?"

"No reason to keep sentimental objects," she shrugged.

"I wonder how it never came up that the famous Warden who slew the archdemon and ended the Blight was a Cousland. Your family name still carried weight the last time I was in Ferelden."

"When we become Wardens, we lose our families. The Wardens are our family. We are asked to give up titles, give up revenge, become equals."

"And yet you still killed my father."

She raised her chin to look him in the eye, meeting his pupils even across the distance and poor lighting. "I killed your father because he was a traitor to Ferelden." She paused. "I did a good job of it because he killed my family."

"Tell me, how much did he beg before you finally killed him?" His words were bitter, like he expected her to tell him it was a great deal – one more nail in the coffin of his soul, so to speak.

"Not one word. He went down fighting, insisting that my family had more than they deserved, and that instead, it was he who deserved more."

Nathaniel had nothing to say to that – he was no stranger to his father's greed. But it was one thing to know it himself and another to allow someone else to speak ill of the man.

"They betrayed us to the Orlesians," he stated, less sure of the words, and he knew she knew it.

"Your father was the one who insisted as much to Loghain. One didn't have to know the Hero of River Dane for more than a moment to know that it was the Orlesians that were his hot button. He agreed readily enough that if my family were indeed such dirty traitors that Rendon Howe should 'take care' of the situation. The man did a damn good job of pretending ignorance when I met him." Considering they had both, at several points in their lives, considered Loghain Mac Tir a personal hero, discovering otherwise was mildly traumatizing at best.

The door to the dungeons opened again, and there was the clink of plate as Varel came back down the stairs. She rose from her seat and met him halfway. He peered around her to see the cell door still closed, and they began talking quietly. Nathaniel only heard a few words, not enough to really get an idea of the topic, so much as the emotion – Varel was the one he could see the most of, and his face was quite expressive: surprise, confusion, uncertainty, acceptance. At that, the older man turned and tromped back up the stairs, closing the door behind him again.

"Is the hangman's noose ready yet?"

She turned on her heel to see him standing closer to the bars, hands clasped behind his back. "Hmm?"

"They were merely waiting for your blessing on their justice. Didn't you hear, I'm to be hanged."

"No you're not."

"Personal reasons aside, Elissa…" It was the first time since she'd come down here that he'd called her by name. She had used his name over and over again, but he had not returned the familiarity. "You are taking over as the arlessa of these people, and the first justice you are to mete out cannot be seen as weak. Mercy is a weakness when making first impressions of this caliber."

She crossed her arms over her chest. "So you would have me hang you, even though, in truth, all you did was trespass?"

"With intent towards thievery and murder," he added, in case she had forgotten.

They stared at each other for a long time, and then she approached the cell door, key outstretched. He stepped back and let her open the cell door.

"I'm sorry it had to be like this," he said quietly, carefully keeping his distance.

"You're possibly going to be sorrier later."

"Yes, I do suppose a stretched neck would make me quite sorry," he allowed, the conversation having taken a turn towards the macabre, and not in the way he suspected.

"Alas, you don't get to hang today," she said, and stepped away gesturing for him to precede her, and he looked confused. "Nathaniel Howe, I am conscripting you into the service of the Grey Wardens."

"What? No!"

"Sorry, I can't hang you, and luckily for you, conscription is its own sick justice," she admitted cryptically. "Everyone wins here. Hopefully."

He took hold of her arm, and her entire body stiffened. "What are you doing, Elissa?"

Her mouth twisted in a sad moue, made more unfortunate by the furrowing of her brow. "I can't march you out there, knowing with complete certainty that it was by my hand that you left this life. I loved you once, Nathaniel Howe. Can you really blame me?"

"You are complicating things."

"I know."

As she escorted him out into the sunshine and across the courtyard of the keep, she clung desperately to the hope that what she was about to do was not the same as handing him his own carefully fitted noose that she had tied herself.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I have a crush on Varel. I'm just going to come right out and admit it. And clearly I think Anders is a bit of a lech. But the fun kind, obviously.

Disclaimer: Bioware owns all.

* * *

"He is resting in his chambers, Commander."

She sat at the little table in the kitchen, clearly invading the personal space of the cook, who was now forced to make her way around _two_ invaders. "Thank you, Varel."

He opened his mouth and then closed it, and turned to leave.

"Something you wanted to ask me, Varel? Perhaps you'd like to know," she traced idle patterns in the wood (her new favorite way to avoid looking someone in the eye – she was glad Vigil's Keep had a fair share of wooden tables for her to sit at), "how I ended up betrothed to the son of a traitor?"

"It is none of my business, Commander."

"Have a seat, Varel," she said, but did not look up at him, nor did she gesture to the chair across from her. He hesitated, and then pulled the chair out and sat in it, folding his hands together on the tabletop. "Once upon a time, in a teyrnir not very far from this very arling, lived a girl who was very much in love with the eldest son of her father's good friend and neighbor. While the match was not particularly advantageous for her family, her parents encouraged her whims when they veered towards marrying for love," she recounted. She looked up at the seneschal for a moment. "They married for love, and thought everyone was entitled to it in turn, if at all possible." Her finger resumed its swirling movements, and she began talking to the wood again. "The girl and the young man were betrothed, but it would be years before he could return to marry her – he was squiring in the Free Marches, and had yet to make his name. So she waited. And she waited. And then the young man's father thought it was only fitting that when he rose to power by treason, that he also need betray those who had been closest to him – his friends, his son's intended. The girl escaped, aided by a Grey Warden, and together with the future king of Ferelden, slew darkspawn and ended the Blight. The end."

"You killed his father, did you not?" Varel asked, his voice calm and quiet. In that moment she missed her own father dearly.

"Yes. I killed him for his treason against Ferelden and for his crimes against my family. I also killed my childhood hero, the general who led Ferelden to throw off the yoke of Orlesian oppression, the Hero of River Dane." She paused. "I've killed a lot of people, Varel, and few of them sit well with me. I still am just naïve enough, or maybe it's misguided optimism, to want mercy and the chance for redemption to be available for all. But not only is it not possible, if it were, I doubt all of them would take it. I wanted mercy for Loghain, because he was poisoned by Howe. But it was he who led the rebellion, started the civil war, allowed the king to die – he could not be permitted to live. A small part of me will always regret his death – of all of them, I think he could have been redeemed, at least in part."

Varel did not reply, merely continued to sit there, amidst the crackling fire in the kitchen hearth and the sounds of the cook's puttering. He waited for her to continue.

"You know another reason I wanted mercy for Loghain? For all that he did, for all that he deserved his fate…he loved his daughter. He loved her a great deal, and," she looked up, "I am pretty sure Rendon Howe never loved any of his children. He did nothing good for this world. He may have fought beside true heroes like my father and Loghain once upon a time, but simply existing in the company of heroes does not make one of similar quality."

"And so you spare his son? Is this penance for the deeds you have done?"

"I spared his son because I'm selfish, Varel. Of all things to hold onto as a Grey Warden, when I am asked to leave my old life behind, it is my selfishness I am most ashamed of."

"It is nothing to be ashamed of, my lady."

"No, it…I let my past feelings steer my decision. I entertained so many outcomes when you gave me that key and left me alone with him. I could have let him escape, but what good would that have done?"

"Not much."

"Exactly. But neither could I let him hang. So I left it up to the Maker to make my decision for me. A decision that fell to me as arlessa, as commander of this keep, and I tossed a coin in the air and hoped the Maker saw fit to direct me."

"Many have sought guidance from the Maker in the past, my lady. You are no different."

She chuckled. "You've known me little more than a day and already you are justifying my rash actions. This could become a very bad precedent, seneschal. You are supposed to be keeping me on the straight and narrow," she looked up at him to see the slightest ghost of a smile.

"Merely offering information for your consideration, Commander." She nodded slowly, eyes back on the table, and he slid his chair out and stood. "If I may take my leave, Commander, I have other tasks which must be addressed."

"Oh, right, of course, of course. Sorry to keep you."

"It is no bother, my lady," he bowed briefly, barely a clink as his braces touched, before he turned to walk out the door.

"Thank you, Varel," she offered quietly. He only made a 'hm' noise in the back of his throat.

# # # # # #

"So, I hear we have another guest," Anders cheerfully joined her, disrupting her silent brooding. For all that he was a frequent guest of templar manacles, the man was excessively jovial…something she rather needed just now.

"Another brother to add to our ranks, yes."

"So let me get this straight," he paused in his consumption of a heel of bread he'd been chomping on and held up a finger. "You are the Hero of Ferelden, slayer of the archdemon, bosom buddy to our fine king, and child of a noble house. So far the Grey Wardens have included a noblewoman and a king," he held up another finger. "Good stuff, heroic stuff. Now," he paused for dramatic effect, and she had to smile. "You have added to the ranks of this illustrious and _secret_ society by adding," he ticked off her companions, a finger a time, "a drunkard dwarf, a dashingly handsome apostate, and now a thieving son of a traitor." He clicked his tongue at her and she couldn't help but grin at him.

"Yes, well, I have the blood of a Revered Mother in me. You _need_ me," she chuckled.

"Well between you and those lads, you know they didn't even send any lady templars this time? I think they're catching on. At any rate, if the choice came down to more alone time in the Tower, escorted by those fine Chantry soldiers, and sharing in _your_ lovely company, well…"

"Flatterer."

He winked at her. "Don't you know it."

"You're right though. Clearly we need more men of noble blood and heroic mien to bolster our ranks. No one will take us seriously if we don't have pretty clothes and even prettier soldiers to fight the ickle darkspawn."

"Hey, I'll have you know I'm _quite_ pretty, and with a needle and thread, my clothes could be too."

"Never knew you were an artiste with the needle and thread."

"My mysteries are deep and wide," he intoned solemnly.

"And yet plunging into their depths still won't get you laid, mage."

Anders raised an eyebrow. "It disturbs me how easily you resist my charms."

"Try spending a year with an Antivan and an Orlesian."

"At the _same time_? There's so much I didn't know about you! You think the Chantry might take me back into their fold? I'm clearly in the rapture of a deviant."

She laughed. "Maybe sometime I'll tell you about our pillow fights."

"You are a naughty, naughty woman, Commander," he replied, craning his neck back to get a good look at her, and managing to sound a little bit proud.

"And you don't even know the steamy bits," she said, resignation creeping into her fun as she pushed away from the table to stand. "But alas, that is a tale for another time. Now it's time to kick the new Warden out of my bed."

"I don't recall getting the pleasure when _I _became a Warden. I do believe I woke up on the cold stone floor. I'm…a little insulted."

"I didn't…well that came out wrong."

"Or very very right. Except replace the thief with me," he offered generously.

"It's not technically _my_ bed yet, because I haven't slept in it, but no one was exactly expecting so many guests. Varel said they opened up a few rooms so that no one will have to sleep in bedrolls in the main hall like some indoor camping excursion."

"What, you didn't like toasting marshmallows while Oghren regaled us with tales of his exploits? Women and booze through the eyes of a strange, axe-wielding dwarf. Now, you can't say that wasn't fun."

"I've heard most of them already," she admitted, and drifted out the door, leaving Anders mildly unsure if she had been flirting with him or if in fact she had admitted to some pretty kinky shenanigans involving an Antivan and an Orlesian and pillow fights. He sighed and took another bite of the heel of bread.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Bioware owns all.

* * *

"Why do you still have it? Why do you...wear it?"

She looked up from her desk, and he was standing there, arms crossed over his chest, looking for all the world like _she_ had done something wrong.

"You're awake."

He raised an eyebrow, still clearly looking for an answer. At least his terse conversationalism had not changed. But she supposed she wished he was different - if he was different than she remembered, this would be easier. She inhaled deeply.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Don't pretend to be stupid."

"If it offends you that much," she reached across her desk for a small, wicked-looking knife that she had retrieved from a darkspawn body that was now used to open her correspondence. She lifted it to her neck, and she caught his flinch. She snorted softly and then used it to slice the beaten, leather cord at her neck with a soft 'snick'. It slid down her chest with the weight on the end and she grabbed it and pulled it out. She dangled it in the air - a small pewter object the shape of a rough-hewn coin (that had definitely seen better days), stamped with the Howe crest with slash marks etched in the edge. "Do you want it back?"

It was sick that it made her a little happy that he flinched, ever so slightly. "I simply wondered why..." He trailed off, his face becoming impassive again. "No, I...don't want it back," he dropped his arms and turned and left the room.

As his footsteps receded, her arm fell back to her desk, fingers still gripping the cord. She was still for several moments - it sounded funny to think that she'd almost forgotten it. She'd worn it under her tunic, against her skin, for so long that her body only took notice when it wasn't there. She'd strung it on the walk to Ostagar, and it had not left her neck since.

_"What is it you keep touching in your pocket?"_

_She stared over the flames at her rescuer._

_"Just something from home." She touched the pocket again, as though to ensure it was still there._

_"I am sorry that we did not have time retrieve any keepsakes."_

_"No, I know we couldn't," she replied, staring straight into the darkness, the flicker dancing on her cheek._

_"When we reach Ostagar, the king will be informed of this."_

_"Mmhm."_

_"Perhaps you should get some sleep. We still have quite a way to travel."_

_She stood and pulled her bedroll closer to the flames and curled up just far enough away not to set herself on fire. Duncan watched as she shut her eyes with a determination towards sleep._

_The next morning, they packed quickly and began walking, with very little conversation between them. They operated well without verbal cues, stopping infrequently as she seemed determined to get as far from Highever as possible._

_"I was born in Highever, you know."_

_"Me too," she replied and then let out a short, sharp laugh. "Well, okay, that much is obvious. Sorry, my mind..."_

_"Is elsewhere, I understand."_

_"Yeah."_

_Four days after their fireside conversation, he had tapped her on the shoulder and handed her trinket to her. She gasped and hurriedly patted herself down, and then slung the pack around her waist, searching through it, as though the item he held out could not possibly have escaped in the first place. When she discovered it missing, she hesitated before taking it from Duncan and shoving it back in the pack._

_"The Howe crest?"_

_"Yes."_

_"A reminder of vengeance?"_

_"No."_

_They did not speak of it again, but soon after she whittled a hole in the soft metal and threaded a leather cord through it and tied it around her neck so she would not lose it again._

She ran her thumb over the etched marks on the edge of the token. One mark for every moon he would be gone. At one time, most of them were filled in with wax, so that she might run her finger over the edge and remind herself how long there was before he would return and they could be married. Since then, most of the wax had fallen out, crumbled away, but there were still a couple of random marks that still held wax in its crevice. She had no idea why she still wore it - unlike her candid admission to selfishness and her desire to not find herself responsible for Nathaniel's death, she could not be as candid about this. She was incapable of loving the man who existed now - the girl who made that promise three and a half years ago did not exist anymore either. The promise was clearly not going to be carried out, so what she clung to was a reminder of the past that kept her from moving on.

Idly, she fingered the crest and chuckled, somehow making it sound defeated. She could have been queen. She could have loved Alistair - he was easy enough to love, and if she was honest with herself, he had affected her more than she cared to admit. She held tight to the idea, for many weeks, that Nathaniel was not involved with his family's betrayal; that he could not possibly have known. And then she tortured herself with the idea that Nathaniel, who had loved his father despite his faults, may have died and Rendon Howe never felt it pertinent to inform her. He never came around to the marriage, despite giving his reluctant blessing. He often cited "young love" as being fleeting, and speculated aloud that perhaps Nathaniel, in his time away, had made other arrangements. Her own father had gently rebuffed Rendon for sharing such things where his daughter could hear, and Rendon always apologized, expressing his "deep desire" for Nathaniel to hold true to his first promise. She never felt he was genuine but accepted the apology all the same.

Then there was Alistair. He was completely different than Nathaniel, and she often welcomed the change. He talked constantly, animated about every little thing. With few exceptions, he was the cheerful one always trying to lift her mood. The night he kissed her, she had been briefly determined to forget Nathaniel Howe, to leave that life behind. But instead, she cried, and while she managed to apologize, and Alistair made a joke of it ("What was that nursery rhyme? Kiss the girls and make them cry? Always thought they were kidding…this is bad, right?"), nothing had come of the attempt. He had held her that night while she told him the entire thing - and ever after was her closest friend. She began to rely on him, and he on her. If she had managed to let Nathaniel go, if she had forced herself to stop clinging to the past, it would have been a matter of moments to put herself on the road to recovery. But her heart had other ideas, so instead she let him be her friend, and he had quickly become one of the best friends she had ever had.

Nights in camp were spent talking and bit by bit she convinced him that he would be a good king. He asked her, the night before the Landsmeet, to marry him anyway. She had considered it, seriously considered it, and then had asked him if he really wanted to marry her, or if he just didn't want her to leave.

"_It wouldn't be SO bad, would it? Marrying your best friend?"_

"_No. No it wouldn't."_

"_Then say yes."_

_She bit her lip, trying to find the words for her question. "Alistair, answer me a question."_

"_Before you've answered mine? Hardly seems fair."_

"_And I swear on Andraste's flaming sword, if you lie to me…" she pointed her finger at him, and he held up his hands in surrender. Her shoulders fell with her exhale. "Do you want to marry me because you've been secretly in love with me this whole time or because you just don't want me to leave?"_

"_I don't want to do this alone."_

"_So marry Anora."_

_He made a face. "Please tell me you're joking. Actually, take that back. Let's pretend you never even said that out loud."_

"_So which is it?"_

"_I am very fond of you."_

"_And I am fond of you. But fondness is not the reason I marry people. I'm fond of Sten and Sandal, but I'm not about to marry either of _them_."_

"_Really bad mental images right there. Thanks for that."_

"_Answer the question."_

"_I think, if you gave us a chance, a real chance, it could work."_

"_Who did you learn this evasiveness from?" She cocked her head at him, and folded her arms across her chest._

"_You."_

"_Great."_

"_What do you want me to say? Of course I want more with you, if I can have it. I love you…"_

_She must have looked shocked, because he laughed and reached out to pull her into a hug._

"_I love you as a very dear friend, and considering what I know about arranged marriages, I could do _so _much worse. I'd like to marry my best friend. And if there's steamy bits, I'm sure I won't object," he added with a smile. "It's for Ferelden after all," he added, more seriously._

_She unfolded her arms between them and wrapped them around him._

"_You make a good offer," she said into his tunic, and then pulled away to look up at him. "But you know I can't say yes. Not until…"_

"_Not until you know he's dead."_

"_It's stupid, I know. I mean, after all that's happened…"_

"_But you'd regret us if he still lived and you couldn't…get closure," he said, a wry twist to his lips. He sighed. "Well, if we do this, if this making me king thing doesn't get us both disemboweled on the fancy carpeting tomorrow, I figure they'll give me about a year before they start forcing eligible ladies on me. Arl Eamon, of course, will start immediately, but it's been years since I've had to mind him – it will take some months to get back in the habit, I'm sure."_

"_A year."_

"_At which point I hope you'll take me up on my offer. I mean, you got me into this mess. It's only fair you have to muck about in it too."_

"_How sweet of you."_

"_Sweet as honey, that's me!" He grinned, and hugged her again, tightly and briefly. "Okay, this is me, going to bed, _alone_," he cocked an eyebrow at her, even though they both knew it was a jest, "to get some sleep before some crazy lady makes me king tomorrow."_

"_You will make yourself king."_

_He smiled. "You have such faith in me. It's…a little embarrassing."_

"_I know you can do it, and you'll do it well."_

"_I hope so. I really hope so."_

She'd written to him, and the letter sat on her desk, propped up and sealed. It was short, only a few lines.

_Alistair,_

_Last place you look, right? He has been in my dungeons for nearly a week. Don't know what will happen, but reunion did not go well. So I made him a Warden. It was that or hang him. Remind me again why I let you do this to me?_

_Elissa_


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Bioware owns all.

* * *

"Well _that_ wasn't awkward," Anders dropped himself into the chair opposite her desk, and she stepped out from behind the screen, dressed in her breeks and tunic, drying her hair.

"Which part, the part where you just walk into my bedroom or the part where I just got out of the bath?"

"Huh?" He craned his neck to look at her. "No, not what I was talking about. Though if you put the desk in the office, you know, where desks go, then I wouldn't be just walking into your bedroom like this," he pointed out, and looked around, examining the meager decorations. "I was talking about our resident displaced nobleman."

"The woman was his governess as a child and the closest thing he had to a mother when he was a young man. You can't expect he would have taken it _well_."

"No. I suppose not."

"All this killing is easier when they don't have faces," she said quietly, and slid into the chair behind her desk.

"Not a fan of killing in general, me, faces or no."

"Is that your way of finally giving me an answer?" She raised an eyebrow, appraising him, and he seemed taken aback for a moment.

"Thought you said when we joined the Wardens, we left our pasts behind us?" He was trying for lightness and mostly achieved it.

"Have it your way."

"Thanks!" he said brightly, and then sobered. "But really. Can you trust him? I know there's..." he waggled his finger at her, "_something_ between you, but can you _trust_ him?"

"I'm putting an awful lot of trust in all of you, considering the circumstances and that I don't know you all that well. Except Oghren. Drunkard or no, he's earned it in spades awhile back."

"And Nathaniel, who gets special treatment and no one will tell me why."

"Why are you harping on me about Nathaniel? Didn't I give you a cat so you'd leave me alone?"

"I could say something very uncouth right now. But I'm not going to, because I have this feeling one is not supposed to say such things to their commanders."

She snorted. "I'd wager I've heard worse, but yes, that…would be inappropriate."

"So you bought me off with a tabby. Secured my loyalty with a conversational furball."

"Yes," she nodded once decisively, and he rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. "You're so full of it, it's coming out your ears," she pointed out affectionately.

"Are you going to talk to him?"

"Why?"

"I don't know. Someone should. And you have been unanimously volunteered."

She raised an eyebrow. "By whom?"

"Well, me, actually. Oghren is…not an option, and I don't want to. If you'd tell me why you two are so childishly awkward around each other, maybe I'd consider changing my mind."

"I wonder, sometimes…" she started, and cocked her head at him, smiling.

"What I look like naked?"

"Whether you know who's in charge here?"

"Well that would be you, but you need some advice steering the ship, now and then. This is where I give that advice."

"And now I'm required to talk to him about it?"

"Or something. You could cut the tension with a knife, and with so few of us, it's…well, it's getting uncomfortable."

"Who are you, the union rep?"

"Yes. Warden's Union For Less Uncomfortable Silences And Awkward Moments Between Our Commander And The Guy Whose Father She Killed," he deadpanned, slouching in the chair and steepling his fingers together.

"I hate you sometimes."

"I know. In the way that means you really love me."

"Get out of my bedroom." She pointed her finger towards the door, and he popped up out of the chair. With a dramatic, flourished bow, made his exit, his robes swishing. She chuckled, wondering how she managed to surround herself with such people. It was almost starting to feel normal again.

# # # # # #

She wasn't quite sure how this should work. It was an awkward limbo, and it was all her fault. She had indeed complicated the hell out of it.

He did not speak to her unless it was absolutely necessary. Meals were raucous as a rule (give Oghren drink and put him within shouting distance of Anders and asking for all hell to _not_ break loose was asking for a personal favor from the Maker), and often she was pulled into the frivolity. But one look down the (new!) table at where he sat, away from the rest of them, was enough to sober her. He ate quietly, did not carouse with their small group of Wardens (or with anyone else, for that matter), and went to bed. Interactions in the field were limited to his scouting and capability with his bow. He followed orders and did his duty, so there was little to take issue with.

There was one particularly awkward moment when she could not get a chest open (after killing some very ill-informed bandits who thought the Wardens were pushovers), and after cussing several body parts, weapons, and frilly underthings of the prophet, he shouldered her out of the way with a terse 'let me'. His toolkit was far more expansive than her own, and he got the chest open with minimal effort. He opened the top, and said 'does this please you?' only to pause suddenly and stride away without another word.

_"What was that about?"_

_"Nothing."_

_"Didn't look like nothing."_

_"Drop it, Anders."_

_"Fine, fine," he said, hands up and backing away. "You know, for such a small group, one would think we'd know everything about each other by now. I know there's something you're not telling us."_

_"Because it's none of your beeswax."_

_"Oh, excellent. I haven't heard that since I was a child."_

_"I like to pay homage to the classics."_

_"So, not going to tell me then?"_

_"You are so right sometimes it unsettles me," she said with a disarming grin, and began to hand him trinkets to stow in his pack to sell back in the city._

She approached him later that evening before she retired.

"You know," she started, trying for a casual tone that wasn't at all coming naturally, "I'm not saying we pretend like the last three years didn't happen, but you don't have to avoid me like plague."

He turned his head to look at her for a moment and then went back to waxing his bowstring. "I...Elissa, you have to let me alone. I can't do this, play nice with you. I do my duty and earn my keep, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. Nothing more."

Her shoulders sagged a little, and luckily he did not see it. "I apologize. Good night," she offered and was gone before he looked up again.

He clenched his teeth together, because those words had been so hard to get out, and he hated that something that should have been so simple hurt so much. He was at war with himself - he had vivid memories of her, of them, since they were children. Some…more recent memories were downright visceral and had provided distraction many a night in the Marches. Everything after that, everything causing his confusion and heartache, were things he'd been told, things he had no real grasp on. It was as though these things could be forgotten, as though they had never happened, while at the same time, the weight of them suffocated his fonder memories. He had not seen his father in nearly two years when he began hearing tidbits of news. His father had become the teyrn of Highever because the Couslands were working with the Orlesians to overthrow the king. He had no letters from Elissa after that, and the only word about the Couslands was of Fergus's death at Ostagar.

He had grieved for a very long time. It was hard to believe the affable, patriotic Bryce Cousland could have been a traitor, and it was worse to think that Elissa had not known his true loyalties, and would likely have defended her own father to her death.

He had kept all her letters for nearly a year before he burned them. All but one.

_My beloved,_

_How silly does it sound to start a letter in that way? It is not as if you have changed your name and are no longer Nathaniel. And when you return from the Marches, you may actually __still__ consider marrying me. I am fairly certain my mother still thinks you a little touched in the head, to be honest. Don't know if that's an insult on you or me._

_I find myself daydreaming about the very things I have scolded other girls for wasting their time on for years. It is almost too embarrassing to admit, even like this, but I hope you will forgive me so long as I promise not to be so silly ever again? I wonder if we shall live in Highever or Amaranthine. I wonder, Andraste forgive me, what my wedding dress will look like. And I know if it's far too early to be thinking on those frivolities, it is even more so to think on other aspects of being your wife. I have wondered what I shall look like pregnant with your son. Mother caught me trying to decide which of my dresses might be let out if I find myself in such a delicate condition, and she laughed at me! Discomfiting, to say the least. I blame you, as I am sure will become our way. You will forgive me though?_

_One of mother's friends insists I will have to put away my swords and armor, as it will not be befitting of me once we are wed. I informed her that you would not ask me to do such a thing, that you liked me in armor or covered in mud, and you liked that I could hold my own in a fight. I daresay that some of the things they replied are not fit to commit to paper. I am no idiot, but I think I blushed more that day than any other in my memory._

_Two years seems such a very long time, and I am saddened that we had such little time together before you left._ _Surely you will have to make it up to me when you return?_

_Missing you,_

_Your Elissa_

It was shortly after he burned the letters (all but the one, which was still with his things, tucked away) that he had word of his father's death at the hands of the Grey Wardens. He managed to discover that it was the leader of the Grey Wardens who did the deed, the Hero of Ferelden: she had slain the archdemon, the queen's regent and his father all in a space of a month.

It took him several weeks to get back home, and soon as he discovered his family's holdings had been handed over, he was determined to take back what was theirs before the Wardens set up shop. The part about threatening the Warden's life was, well, it would have been an added bonus, but was hardly the entire point.

Discovering Elissa was the Warden he had sworn retribution against was…confusing, to say the least. They were…different people now. She had a hardness to her that had not been there before; he could see it in her eyes. Her loud barking laughter had not changed, but now it came with…questionable table manners and language he knew her mother would not have approved of. He doubted those were the only things that had changed.

But he was different too - half a year on the run, a traitor's son, living off vengeance and not much else. The young man who cleaned his best boots and bought a new tunic specially to visit her and find out if his marriage request would be well-received no longer existed.

He didn't know what to do.

So he obeyed orders. It was one of the few things he knew he could do well.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: I'm mostly using the events of the game as timeline markers. I'm sure everyone would have been just completely _thrilled_ to read another "and then this happened, which everyone knows BECAUSE WE'VE ALL PLAYED IT" fic, but, well, I just couldn't make myself write it. I'm rubbish at action. I prefer talking and body language and prolonged weighted silences. Perhaps a bit of snark here and there. Forgive me for not going over it...again?

Also, yes, I did put the armory in the same room as their mess hall. They're still organizing themselves. I thought it wouldn't be too bad, what with armor and weapon stands to organize the bits. But it's been brought to my attention (and rightly so) that perhaps the pointy things should not be where the boozing happens. I promise that before Anders stabs himself in the foot while trying to balance a plate of vegetables and a handful of cheese that the pointy stabby things will be removed. Plus, no one wants drunk!Oghren to be within arm's reach of a bow and arrow. That's just asking for some poor servant to get skewered in the bum.

Disclaimer: Bioware owns all.

* * *

"I'm heading into Amaranthine, who wants?" She walked into the room they'd appropriated as armory and mess hall, interrupting everyone's breakfast. She had been intent on gathering herself and moving past the events of a couple nights previous - the night when he had asked her to pretend they did not have a history between them, when he had asked her to treat him as she would any other soldier. If only he knew that she never treated anyone like that - she had no idea how to. Indifference did not come naturally to her, she had to work at it, and now was as good a time as any.

"Ooh, pick me!" Anders cheerfully volunteered.

"This freedom thing is really getting to you, isn't it?" she asked wryly, and he just smiled at her. She was grateful for his good moods - they lifted her out of her melancholy confusion.

Oghren volunteered with a grunt, and she said 'good' and went to the sideboard to collect her breakfast. The cook had quickly caught on to the Warden appetites and even though trading was thin and the local farmers had meager fare, the Vigil could at least keep them supplied in vegetables, potatoes, and eggs from their own gardens and small farmholds within the keep's walls. Winter was not far off, and soon they would be slaughtering pigs (and possibly sheep if they could be found), and she was looking forward to fresher meat in her diet for a short while.

"Commander, I have sent a couple of the keep's soldiers out on a hunt," Varel piped in as she picked at the salted...unrecognizable meat.

There was an amused snort from the other end of the table as she opened her mouth to reply. She shot Nathaniel a sharp look before turning back to the seneschal. "We should see if there is someone in the keep or the city, perhaps, who knows the woodlands well. A gamekeeper in the keep would not go amiss. I intend on bolstering the ranks of the Wardens soon enough, and would one of the first steps to making the keep self-sustainable. Unless, of course," she narrowed her eyes and looked down the table again, "Nathaniel has something to contribute?"

He looked at her, slightly surprised. "Most of the soldiers here are not from Amaranthine. They may luck out for a few days, but they do not know the habits of the wildlife here. A gamekeeper would be most useful indeed. Commander," he added as an afterthought and they shared a stare, wresting for power before he looked away.

"There you have it," she smiled at Varel. "And maybe next time you send soldiers out, Nathaniel will be so kind as to accompany them," she added with forced cheer, not looking at him.

"Yes, Commander," he replied, and her little fit began to leave a bitter taste in her mouth.

After they broke their fast, she waited for Anders and Oghren to meet her at the gate, only to approach it and find Nathaniel waiting.

"I wasn't aware you'd volunteered for this trip," she pointed out blandly.

"I would like to accompany you, yes."

She opened her mouth, but could not find a reply, so she just nodded at him instead.

"I have this...impression that I am under house arrest, as it were."

"With so few Wardens, I do want to keep track of everyone. I prefer to always leave someone behind, but...it won't always be possible with such a small group," she said to the open air, still not meeting his eye, instead fiddling with one of her vambraces.

"Elissa," he said quietly, and she clenched her teeth, closing her eyes. They were rarely alone, and she was as conflicted as she had ever been. The genuine feelings for him lingered, and warred with all of the flotsam about who he was, and who his father was, and now their families were at war, his family disgraced, and his father had killed _Oren_ and it wasn't exactly a topic they could just bring up over a meal - especially if either of them cared to keep aforementioned meal where it belonged.

Not to mention the part where he'd asked her to pretend she didn't know him. As much as she tried to tell herself it didn't matter, it clearly still rankled. And his address of her by her given name didn't help her frustration with the situation.

"What?" It came out a bit sharper than she intended, and with a deep breath, she turned to look at him.

"I have gotten word that Delilah still lives. In...Amaranthine."

She could not help her look of surprise. While she was not close with Delilah by any means, as she was older even than Nathaniel, they had exchanged a few letters during the time that Nathaniel had been in the Marches. Delilah had never made secret of her dislike of her father and his machinations for her in terms of marriage, and found a kindred spirit in the younger Elissa, who had also feared a forced match. And Delilah often mentioned how good she thought Elissa would be for her brother - she was the only Howe aside from Nathaniel himself that seemed genuinely pleased by the betrothal.

"I...am glad for that Nathaniel." A small smile on her lips actually reached her eyes.

"I was wondering…Samuel told me of the merchant she has...attached herself to," the words 'merchant' and 'attached' came out like they were curses on the prophet, "and I thought we, I, might...seek her out?"

"Of course."

"Thank you," he nodded curtly, and stepped away from her - the space between them becoming too personal.

When Anders and Oghren finally showed, bickering as they were wont to do, she was glad to get on the road.

# # # # # #

When they entered the merchant district of the city, she browsed without really paying attention, and Nathaniel's sharp eyes settled here and there, jumping from person to person before he stopped in the middle of the street.

"There."

"Well, go talk to her," she urged, nodding her head in the direction he was staring.

"I..."

She smiled, and for a brief moment, the weight between them was lifted. "Come now, Nathaniel, do you need to be escorted? It's your own sister!"

He looked at her, and then back at whomever he had spotted. "I...you're right." Clearing his throat, he said aloud "come, or don't. It's up to you."

"I don't want to...invade on this," she said, glancing away and touching a silk brocade hanging off a table to her right.

He narrowed his eyes, watched her stroking the fabric. "Stop being so damn difficult," he finally ground out. "Either come or don't."

She turned her head sharply, at first surprised and then, sharing his gaze, nodded. "I will, then."

"So be it," he replied, and began walking away from her.

_Right, because those aren't mixed signals_, she thought uncharitably, but followed after him just the same.

Delilah saw him first, and hugged him tightly. Elissa smiled at the beatific look on Delilah's face at discovering her entire family was not gone. They chatted animatedly for several minutes before Delilah noticed her, hanging back.

"Elissa!" She was enveloped in the same bone-crushing hug that Nathaniel had been subjected to, and when she opened her eyes, she looked over Delilah's shoulder to see Nathaniel's face warring with happiness and grief. Elissa drew away from the other woman.

"How wonderful that he has found you! It's almost a fairytale!" She put her hands on Elissa's face, and smiled at her for a moment before clucking her tongue to snap herself out of the moment. "You both must come inside!"

"I think you and Nathaniel need...time alone. It was lovely to see you, but I shall..." she trailed off and looked around for an excuse.

"Nonsense, come with me, sister," she said cheerfully, hooking their elbows together, and Elissa felt a stinging at the corner of her eyes. She was indeed a sister again, when once she had been alone - now she had Fergus back. But to be called as much as by this woman, who clearly did not know that she had killed her father...it was too much. She pulled her arm out of Delilah's.

"No, thank you. There are...things I am sure you must discuss with your brother."

Delilah seemed confused, and Elissa bowed briefly, making her exit. The Howes watched her stride quickly back through the market, winding in and out of the crowds. As she disappeared from sight, Delilah turned to her brother.

"What did you _do_?"

Nathaniel snorted. "What did _I_ do? Hardly. Have you not heard the news, sister? The Couslands betrayed the Crown, Father killed them, and then she killed Father. Lovely, heart-warming story, really," he stated dryly, still looking out over the meager crowd, only to be punched in the shoulder. "Ow! What was that for?"

"The Couslands did not betray the Crown, you fool! I think it is _you_ who are behind in news. Come inside and I shall set the story straight for you. I don't want to argue with you on the street like some common wench," she tugged his tunic once and opened a door and ducked in, beckoning him after her.

"Yes, I've heard," he began taking in the dark interior, lit by a few tapers and the waxy window coverings that let in a yellowish light. It was only two rooms - a larger open one with a small table and a sideboard for food preparation, and a smaller room visible around the edge of one wall that clearly was the bedroom. He blushed slightly, but it cleared away quickly enough. "Father was the traitor, but once the tide turns, of course things are retracted. Stories change."

"You are too bull-headed for your own good," she said, and told him to sit. He did as directed, and she brought him a cup of tea, which he wrapped his fingers around gratefully.

"So you've always said."

"It was Father all along. His greed for power led to those lies about the Couslands and the Orlesians. There was never any connection there. Father killed Fergus's wife and young son, and burned the castle. I have...heard things, Nathaniel. Things...I would not repeat about how Father ordered the servants and guests of the Couslands to be treated. They are..." she sat across from him and took a sip of her own tea thoughtfully. "Unsavory."

"And you believe them?" he asked sharply.

"Nathaniel," she began. "You have always idolized Father. He was a different man as you got older - a different man than who you remember from your childhood. And that man was...not good."

"How can you say that?"

"Please don't pretend with me," she asked, her face pleading, a little sad. "I know how he treated you..."

"He was trying to make me stronger. If I was to take over the arling, I would need a thicker skin."

"No. You would have made a fine arl. You are a decent and fair man, Nathaniel, and you were a decent and fair boy. Father merely wanted to give you a mean streak that you did not already possess. He wished to remake you in the contorted image that he had remade himself. I admit that I do not know why he...changed. But it was there, for all to see. It got...worse after you left." She set down her cup and looked into the tea, her lips in a tight line.

"Say what you want to say, Delilah," he said in a low tone.

"Among other things, he was...cruel to Elissa. In her hearing and outside of it, he declared you an unfit match. Thought she was too frivolous, like her mother. Like her father. Too...you know," she looked up at him, and cocked her head. "He actually said she was _too_ happy? He hoped you would abandon your suit and allow him to make a better match."

Nathaniel snorted, and sought answers in his own tea. He knew his father had not been thrilled at first, but he had consented. Somehow the idea that he was genuine in his later threats to pass the arling to Thomas if Nathaniel did not rethink his betrothal had not seemed like anything more than threats. His father clearly wanted more than a little bit of land adjoined to his existing arling out of his son's marriage, and pieces began to fall into place as he finally permitted them to do so.

"Happy is not quite how I'd describe her these days."

Delilah sighed. "And you? Are you happy?"

"No."

"Well why should she be? Her family was killed, Nathaniel, and ours disgraced. While I may be alone in feeling freed of the Howe name, I have never had the attachment to it you have always possessed. She has been through quite a lot. If even half the stories are true, it is a wonder she is alive. These years have been no kinder to her than to you." She paused and reached across the table to take her brother's hand in her own. "And she no longer has you to lean on, that much is clear. She missed you a great deal when you were gone, though one had to read between the lines of her letters to know so. I know so much as happened, but...that doesn't go away."

"And you?" he said, squeezing her fingers and declining to comment on her defense of Elissa. "Are you happy?"

"I am," she smiled. "Albert is a good man. I love him, and I...I do not miss that other life often." Her mouth quirked up. "We are expecting a child in the spring."

Nathaniel's face softened, and she let out a little laugh. "Truly?"

"Yes. Our family is not stopped by this, Nathaniel. You will have a niece or nephew within the year. And should you and Elissa...repair your relationship, perhaps it need not stop with nieces and nephews."

"I fear that there is little hope there. I admit that what I felt before is not gone, but...neither is it what it once was. Too much has happened."

"Of course. I'm not suggesting you marry her tomorrow. But just as you say what was once there is not gone, I believe the same of her."

"I wish I had your optimism, did I even really still desire such an attachment. I am...a Grey Warden now."

"Oh?"

"And she my commanding officer."

"Oh Nathaniel," she squeezed his hand again.

"It was that, or hang me."

"What?"

"I was attempting to retrieve some of our things from the keep. They held me, waiting for her to arrive and mete out justice. I may have threatened her life," he added, and hurried on under his sister's disapproving gaze. "I think it surprised everyone that she did not just order me hung from the gate."

She could do nothing but give him a sad smile. "Then if nothing else, perhaps you can be her friend again. I suspect she is in dire need of those these days."

"Perhaps you are right. I...will need to think on the things you've said," he informed her, and let go of her hand to stand. She stood as well and went to him, wrapping her arms around him. He hugged her tightly before becoming suddenly mindful of her condition, and sprang away.

"Don't worry," she chastised quietly, and pulled him back in. They were of a height, fitting together perfectly, and neither sibling could be sure who held on longer before they parted. "You will come back and see us, won't you? I know Albert would love to meet you. And," she touched her stomach. "So would your nephew."

"Or niece. And wild dogs could not keep me away," he informed her, giving her the second genuine smile she had seen in many years. He kissed her brow and parted her company, promises solicited for further visits from both sides.

He wandered the town, and found Elissa in the Crown & Lion, sans Anders and Oghren. Soon enough, however, Oghren was spotted sleeping facedown on a table, though Anders was nowhere to be seen.

"Ready to leave?"

"Soon as Anders gets back. He had someone to meet - for someone who has spent the last decade or so in and out of solitary confinement in the Circle Tower, he seems to have contacts everywhere."

"Good."

"And your sister?"

"She is well," he said, taking the seat next to her at the bar and waving off the bartender. "I think she was hoping you would stay."

"Did you tell her?" she asked carefully.

"Tell her what?"

"That I am...responsible?"

"She knew."

"She did?"

"Indeed. And she...told me a few things. Things I...must think on."

Elissa nodded. "Of course. Of course," she began tracing the wood grain with her finger.

"And there are...questions I have for you."

"Ask away," she gave him a little smile.

"Grey Wardens..."

"Oh. Right. I gave this talk to Anders and Oghren and I was remiss to not speak to you about it. Especially after..."

"I think I was...too angry. I may not have listened even if you had tried."

"Well. It's...not something to talk about in a pub. We should talk when we get back to the Keep."

"Right. Secrets. You know my grandfather was a Warden?"

"He was?"

"Or at least he left to become so. No one heard from him after that. Then again, he was also believed to be an Orlesian sympathizer, so the Warden part might not actually be true. Might have been just a way for my family to keep their honor and explain it away."

She nodded. "In your grandfather's time, Wardens were not permitted within the borders of Ferelden. The nearest chapter would have been in Orlais. So it might have been a bit of both. Perhaps he was not a sympathizer, but merely dedicated to the Warden cause, and sought them out across the border. You never know."

"I had not considered that."

"But not everyone survives the...ritual," she added.

"Ah."

"I can write to Weisshaupt. They keep all the records of every Warden in Thedas. I sent word of you, and Anders and Oghren, but I don't think they even acknowledge such things. Mistress Woolsey was sent _by _Weisshaupt, but she has never been there. I honestly don't really know how they work out there. I wrote to one of the Orlesian chapters, telling them of the deaths here, but I do not know if they will send more to bolster our ranks or no. I'm...rather blind here." She looked away and then back at him, catching his eye and giving him a small smile. "What I meant to get at was...I can write them and ask about your grandfather. Ask...what happened to him. If, indeed, he was intending to join and did arrive to do so and was given the Joining, his name will be recorded. Perhaps it will…clear some things up."

"You...would do that?"

She grimaced a little. "Yes. Of course. I..." she floundered. "Nathaniel...would you have expected less of me?"

He pressed his lips together. "No. No, I suppose not."

"I...I want..." He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue. "Nathaniel, I want for us to stop being like this."

"Like how?"

"Skirting around each other, like we hardly know one another or like we hate each other. You...well...that is, unless you _do_hate me, which...is justified." She didn't look up at him when she asked "do you?"

He looked away as she looked up for the answer. "No. I don't hate you, Elissa. I am simply incapable of…I don't know how I am to act around you. We...are not the same people we used to be."

"That much is abundantly clear," she quipped. "But what I mean is...can we just agree to stop all this...awkwardness? You're a Grey Warden, I'm a Grey Warden, and we'll sort out the rest as we go. I just…I hate all this tiptoeing. More than anything, I…miss my friend, Nathaniel. Can we…at least try that?"

She looked so hopeful, and he could not turn her down. "I suppose we can try." He was rewarded with a little smile, and he nodded once at her and, as he made to order a drink to take the edge off that charged conversation, Anders, with his perfect timing, tapped her on the shoulder, informing her that he needed her help.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Bioware owns it.

* * *

_Dearest Elissa,_

_I am of two minds – pleased to hear that you have found your long-lost betrothed, and, I admit, a little of the opposite that he will now clearly be competition for my affections! I shall have to challenge him to a duel for you, but being king and all (your big idea, if I recall), should he kill me, it would be very bad for everyone…myself in particular. So no duel then. A cheese-eating competition? Or would that be unfair as, again, I would surely win?_

_Perhaps one of these rigged competitions would be advisable, considering I am seeking just such a victory._

_All jokes aside, I hope this finds you well, and should you need to talk to someone about it (I do wonder if you could get here in person quicker than a missive – shall we test my theory?), Denerim isn't as far from Amaranthine as you pretend, and a royal audience would always be granted to someone of your beauty and heroism._

_Yours, Alistair_

_P.S. Between you and me, as Commander of the Grey and King of Ferelden, I do think we need to have a chat about who you are recruiting into our fine order these days. Was that nonsense with Rylock really self-defense? A conversation best had in person, I should think._

# # # # # #

He now had a firm grip on this 'fighting darkspawn' thing. They smelled hideous and looked worse, and they apparently weren't disappearing the way they were supposed to after Elissa killed the archdemon that commanded them like a general. There was also something she wasn't saying; when they picked up the dwarf, there had been an instant kinship between them he didn't quite understand. She had been quite forthright about the relationships between darkspawn and the Wardens - she informed them that she and the king ("back when he was just a royal bastard") didn't have all the facts and frankly, it was a miracle they survived long enough to _reach_ the archdemon.

_She grabbed the dwarf woman by the arm, and crouched to look her in the eye._

_"I won't let them take you," she said fiercely._

_"Just remember, I'm already dead - there's no crime in killing me for true," Sigrun had replied._

_"And I'm a Grey Warden, my death warrant has been signed for awhile now."_

_"Good to know, Warden. I'm glad we understand each other," the dwarf had nodded once sharply and then Elissa stood back up and ordered them into the Deep Roads._

Now she and the dwarf (Sigrun, he kept reminding himself) were getting sloppy drunk, toasting their survival and alternately diving into melancholy.

"What's with them?" Anders asked the question.

It was Oghren who had their answer. "Darkspawn." Nathaniel just raised an eyebrow, so Oghren continued. "You ever wonder why we never see lady darkspawn?"

"Actually, funnily enough, I never have until just now," Anders pointed out.

"Because those things in that pit, with the tentacles? Those are lady darkspawn," he intoned solemnly.

Anders looked into his mug. "I'm suddenly very glad that I ate quite awhile ago."

Nathaniel must have still looked confused because Oghren looked over at the women for a moment before looking back at his companions. "They take the women, and...they make 'em into them things. Broodmothers, they call 'em. It takes time, and they lose their minds before they...change. Seen it in the Deep Roads back when I traveled with the Commander during the Blight. Sick stuff," he added quietly and downed the rest of his drink and then went to look for more. Anders and Nathaniel contemplated their drinks for a time before Anders excused himself, leaving Nathaniel alone.

He watched the two of them start to wind down, and she signaled one of the soldiers to fetch a servant, who escorted a weaving Sigrun to where she could rest her head. Elissa slouched at the table, swirling her finger in the rings of moisture the mugs had left on the table.

"Hey, come on, time for bed."

She looked blearily up at him. "Hi Nate! Have a drink with me!"

"I think you've had enough," he informed her, a little sparkle in his eyes.

"You think so? I been drunker than this," she nodded several times, and pulled herself up in the chair, and then braced her hands on the table and pushed up. "See? Still standin'! Counts for...a lot!"

"Yes it does. It means I won't have to carry you. Come on," he grabbed her by the elbow to steer her out of the mess hall.

"Don't think you could carry me anymore," she said sadly, shaking her head as he walked with her towards the stairs.

"No?"

"Nope!" She popped the 'p' with her lips and gave him a sad half-smile. "I'm _buff_ now! No more pretty girlish fig'r," she wobbled as they walked up, clearly trying to outline what a girlish figure was supposed to look like.

"You look fine," he said to appease her.

"Fine! Fine fine fine! But not pretty! That's why you don't want to be my friend! Not b'cause I killed your dad, but he was not a good man, he was a bad, bad, man, I don't feel bad about it, nope, not at all. I'm not pretty and that's why you don't wanna kiss me no more!"

He let out a little chuckle. "You know, I don't believe I've ever seen you drink, much less get drunk," he turned them around a corner towards her suite.

"You know the king got me drunk? Didn't try and take adv...ad...nope! Not him either! He still wants to marry me though!"

"He does?" he quirked an eyebrow at her as they reached her chamber door.

"Yep! Says marryin' his bes' friend is better'n marryin' some power-grubbin' gold-diggin' noble bitch!" she proclaimed happily.

"So why don't you marry him? You could be queen," he pointed out as he tried to jimmy the lock on her door.

"Said no. Not yet, 'nyways. Got another bes' friend to marry first."

"Oh, polygamy?" he queried as the door lock obeyed and he depressed the latch, swinging the door open.

"No, no no no no," she said and he directed her into the room and pushed her towards the bed. "Lis'en! This is...import'nt!" He got her to sit down on her bed and crouched in front of her, and began to unlace her boots.

"I'm listening," he said quietly.

"Okay. Lis'en! Cos I have this friend, his name is Nathaniel, hey! You know him!"

He chuckled. "Indeed I do."

"Right! Hi Nathaniel!" she seemed distracted again and he slid off one boot and pulled off the sock, tucking it in the boot before beginning on the other.

She watched him unlace her other boot, and began telling him about nugs, and one apparently named 'Schmooples' who liked to stick his face in everyone's boots because, clearly, he liked stinky things. She babbled on about how the next time the king came to the keep he was going to bring her her dog, who was a good puppy, as he removed that boot and sock, and then had her scoot back on the bed and swung her legs up onto the mattress. She kept talking, though it was slower and made even less sense once she curled around her pillow. He pulled the blanket up over her and whispered 'good night' as he tucked the blanket in.

"Night night, Nate. Love you," she mumbled. "Don't let them take me, 'kay?" and then she was asleep. He watched her for a few moments, watching her ribs rise and fall under the blanket.

"Promise," he whispered, then he closed the door quietly behind him and found his way to his own bed.

# # # # # #

The next morning was quite interesting - in that Anders had quit while he was ahead, Nathaniel did not get stinking drunk, Oghren always had hair of the dog for breakfast, and Sigrun apparently just knew how to hold her liquor. It was, therefore, only the Commander who was suffering the ill effects of the night before. Considering her general morning cheerfulness, it seemed an unspoken agreement to express excessive cheer when she entered the mess as surreptitiously as possible to seek out her breakfast.

"I hate you all," she grumped, and moved to sit by herself; now that Sigrun had ingratiated herself with the rest of the Wardens (though she had yet to take her Joining).

It was not long before Sigrun joined her, breakfast cleared and only a cup of tea warming her fingers.

"So."

"So you can hold your ale better than I can. I wish I could say it was difficult. It's not," she snorted and stirred her porridge vigorously.

"Not what I was talking about, but good to know where you stand."

"We can do your Joining later this afternoon. After dinner, but before supper. You won't want to eat right before, and you'll pass out after, so..." she trailed off, realizing that with her luck with Nathaniel, she had almost forgotten Mhairi. Well, not really, but...the mortality aspect had slipped her mind for a brief moment, and her stomach tightened. It was amazing what you could forget on purpose if you really wanted. She pushed away her bowl, suddenly no longer hungry.

They were quiet for a moment before Sigrun spoke again. "So what's with you and Nathaniel?"

"What makes you ask that?"

"Well the looks he was giving you all last night, and now this morning."

"Oh really?" She tried to slide her eyes over to the other end of the table.

"Stop sounding, or, well, trying to sound, like you don't care," Sigrun smiled.

"It's not that, it's...why do _you_ care?"

"Girl's gotta know her options."

"Ah."

"And I'm guessing he's off the market?"

She shrugged. "I have no claim on him."

Sigrun narrowed her eyes at Elissa with a sly grin. "Yeah, thought that's how it was. You livin' folk are awfully attached to propriety. Life don't last forever, you know."

Elissa snorted lightly. "Oh, I know that quite well."

"I'm just sayin'. If a man looked at me like that, it wouldn't be just looks for long," she smiled.

"Yes. Well."

"Well what? What's stopping you? He bathes, he's polite, he has those lovely archer's hands! I have a thing for hands," she confessed. "He's not an ogre, and that," she dropped her chin and changed her voice, mimicking poorly his deeper tone, "'does this please you' of his! I'd like to tell him what pleases me," she finished in a leering whisper, one eye narrowed at Elissa, who was turning redder as Sigrun described him.

"Stop whatever it is you're whispering about down there," Anders called from the other end of the table. "I can see the Commander turning red as a tomato from down here! If you two are discussing sexy girly things, I must not be left out!"

"Because you are a sexy girl?" Oghren couldn't help but ask with a grin.

"Okay, I walked into that," Anders pointed his finger at the red-head. "But not my point and you know it."

Elissa swung her leg off the end of the bench and took her dishes toward the kitchen, her gaze averted from everyone, including Sigrun with her big 'told you so' smile.

"Now look what you've done! You scared away the stories!" he said to Sigrun, then yelled in Elissa's direction. "You weren't telling her about the pillow fights were you? I still haven't heard the stories about the pillow fights!"

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. "Pillow fights?"

"Yes," Anders informed him excitedly. "Our lovely Commander, an Antivan, and an Orlesian," he began, and Oghren started to laugh, loud and heartily. "What?" Anders asked, looking at Oghren like he'd just gone crazy – which he very well might have.

"There were no pillow fights!" he managed between guffaws.

"Stop ruining my dreams!"

"It was a Chantry sister and an Antivan assassin," Oghren began.

"Oooh! A _Chantry sister_! This is better than any dirty novel I've ever read," Anders propped his head on his hands.

"The sister and the assassin were bumping uglies, and unless I got _really_ drunk one night and missed it, they never invited the Commander. She and the pike-twirler were sweet on each other."

"Pike-twirler?"

"The king, he is now. Always _talkin'_. At least they kept the ruttin' quiet, unlike the sister and the assassin. Though truth be told, both of _them_ sounded like girls, so not sure who was the expert there. Then again, I think the sister liked girls, and that assassin was damn girlish, though he did talk about his manparts an awful lot."

"The Commander and the king? She really is quite secretive, that one," Anders glanced in the direction of the kitchen, but she had either slipped by or was still in there, hiding.

"She's a good fighter, and a good woman, that's all that matters. The rest is just sugar-coated nonsense."

"Even the part about my father?"

"Well no," Oghren said suspiciously. "She did kill 'im, but that man needed killin'," he said more confidently, and narrowed his gaze at Nathaniel. "He liked torturin' folk for sport, your old man. Moved a bed into the room right above the dungeons, probably so 'e could hear the screams and let them sing 'im to sleep. I wouldn't lose sleep o'er him. I know he was your pa an' all, but he was bad business. I'm tellin' you this so you don't go botherin' her about it. She's done a lot of things she didn't like to do because it needed doin', so don't go harpin' on her about the things that needed to be done," he warned. Then he got up from the bench. "I gotta take a piss," he informed them, and ambled off.

Anders was muttering something about pillow fights, but Nathaniel wasn't paying attention. This was three people now that had tried to tell him about his father – one who shared his blood, one he used to trust a great deal, and one total stranger. Such an assortment of people all having the same opinion…it unsettled him.

That night, after a day spent at the keep training and helping the dwarven mason and his crew, Nathaniel washed away the sweat and grime, and before he lay down to sleep, he pulled her letter out of its hiding place. He hadn't read it in nearly a year, but kept it with him all the same.

It still started the same as he remembered:

_My beloved…_


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Bioware owns. But I'm touching it anyway.

* * *

_He was dressed in Howe gold, and she in Cousland green. Her dress was simple, embroidered with the laurels of the family crest in Howe gold, and his had a small laurel in green on the lapel of his tunic under the gold brocade doublet. She fingered it and he took her fingers in his hand, and kissed them with a small smile, running his finger back and forth over the thin golden band she wore on her heart finger._

"_So, wife, shall we sup with our guests?"_

_She grinned. "You're going to make me wait, aren't you? Two years wasn't enough?"_

"_Two years, four months, and a fortnight."_

"_Clearly you have not been counting," she jested._

_He pulled her in close. "I cannot wait to get you alone."_

"_We're alone now," she pointed out, arching a brow._

"_Yes, but the things I shall do to you, wife, will make us late for dinner. We can't have that, now can we?"_

"_My parents will forgive us," she assured him._

"_And my father will not."_

_She sighed. "Is there any way we can encourage them to eat quickly?"_

"_A watched kettle never boils," he informed her with a small smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle._

"_At least give me a kiss to tide me over," she teased, and he obliged, covering her mouth with his own. Warm dry lips met her tongue-moistened ones, and he gave her the kiss that had been too inappropriate for the Chantry. His hand cradled the back of her head, tilting it this way and that, opening his mouth over hers. She parted her lips and darted out her tongue to touch his upper lip. He smiled and she felt it, and she let out a soft chuckle._

"_That sort of thing will make us late," he warned against her mouth._

"_Not too much, I don't think," she countered, taking back a kiss._

"_You," he informed her, never moving his mouth more than an inch from hers between kisses, "are going to argue with me constantly aren't you?"_

"_Only about the important things," she said, and twined her arms around his neck, pulling him in again. He chuckled, and slipped his tongue into her mouth, running it down the length of hers, tasting the underside of her tongue and breathing her breath._

_By the time they had parted, she had to straighten his braid, and as she turned to go, he goosed her on the bum._

"_That's for the comments we're going to get now," he teased._

"_Nothing embarrasses you, Nathaniel. You'll be a hero, all manly and that. I, however, will be forced to blush like a ripe apple because you're so virile you can't wait for me to eat first," she admonished jokingly._

"_You jest, but you're going to thank me for that virility later," he leered._

"_Is that a promise?"_

"_Alright, we're leaving. Now."_

"_Two years, Nathaniel! I read a lot of books!"_

"_Go," he shooed her, and she held out her hand to him. He threaded his fingers with hers, and she opened the door, light streaming in…_

"Up and at 'em," a cheery female voice pulled him from his dream as she threw open the drapes.

"What are you doing in my chambers, foul woman?"

"The Warden-Commander requests your presence. She's off for the Wending Wood this afternoon, a scouting mission, and you're to come along, she says," the maid was already exiting, having done her duty by waking him.

He merely scowled at her, and she bobbed her head, closing the door behind herself. He threw his forearm over his head, and pulled up his pillow, covering his face with it. Taking a few deep breaths, clearing his head of the silly dream, he tossed away the pillow and threw the blanket off his legs, and sat up.

The letter lay folded on his nightstand. He shouldn't've read it before bed. That was why. He…hadn't had that dream in a long time. This…was going to make it worse.

# # # # # #

"Nathaniel Howe, you are a fine shot with the bow." Velanna seemed reluctant in her praise, almost confused by the words coming out of her own mouth, and Elissa, walking ahead of them, smiled.

"Erm. Thank you."

"The Dalish value the skills of their archers quite highly. If I had not shown a gift for the arcane, I should have been trained as an archer."

Elissa raised an eyebrow and shared a look with Anders walking in step with her, and he just shrugged. Velanna did not seem the type to volunteer information about herself, and certainly never praised anyone (considering she'd only recently decided they were allowed to live). It was disturbing to hear her voice take any other tone than boredom, anger, or downright disgust.

"I took to the skill as a boy."

"Indeed our archers are valued members of our communities, trained from young ages - they are our hunters, our defenders. Dalish archers have quite the reputation," she added, and this time it was Anders who elbowed Elissa, as the last phrase sounded almost..._saucy_.

"Yes. So I've heard." Nathaniel remained terse, and sounded mildly suspicious.

"Come children, we're almost home!" Elissa shouted as the keep appeared over the hill. She heard Velanna make some other comment to Nathaniel about her referring to them as 'children', but she did not catch his reply. It wasn't until supper that she and Anders confronted him about his budding friendship.

"I think she liiiiikes you," Anders taunted, and Nathaniel only narrowed his eyes.

"Making conversation is not the invitation you mages seem to think it is," he replied firmly, his eyes darting to Elissa once. She did not notice, but Anders, perceptive and fishing for answers, did.

"Friend Nathaniel, perhaps you did not notice, but she _is_ a mage."

"Not a mage raised in the tower where twitching one's robes in a come-hither manner is license to copulate in a dark corner."

Anders frowned, looking almost insulted. "You make it sound so...dirty! Alright, sometimes it was _quite_ dirty, but most of the time you were so worried about getting caught you didn't get to the fun dirty bits." Nathaniel just let out a 'hmpf', which only spurred Anders on. "And tower-raised or not, we mages have a certain joie de vivre that I thought our dear Velanna lacked, but clearly she possesses, if lacking in _taste_," he said, eyes darting between Elissa and Nathaniel. "She wants in your leathers, my good man. I say go for it."

"Maybe you should try having a pleasant conversation with someone once in awhile, and maybe then you'd have more luck enticing them into your bed."

"Ouch, I'm _hurt_ Nathaniel."

"Hey, stop it you two," Elissa butted in. "I don't think anyone should try to seduce Velanna," she began, and then looked mock-worried. "I think she bites."

Anders grinned and leaned towards her over his meal. "MaybeI _like_ that, Commander."

"Flirt," she chastised with a smile.

"Is it working?" he asked, still looking devious. She tore off a bit of her bread and threw it at him, bouncing it off his nose.

"I'm going to be ill," Nathaniel commented, taking another bite of his stew.

"I know several things known to cure any illness," Anders offered cheerfully. "Good healing magic, the ashes of the prophet, and a roll in the hay with a pretty lady. I'm actually feeling rather ill myself, and there are no ashes about," he said, turning his gaze back on Elissa.

She grinned at him. "Well I suppose you're just going to have to heal _yourself_ then."

"Oh, ouch," Anders clutched his chest, and Nathaniel dipped his head to his meal, hiding his smile.

# # # # # #

"My darling Velanna!"

"Cease prattling at me so. I am not your darling," she sniped.

"Merely offering a compliment."

She looked apprehensive. "I do not...take compliments well."

Anders smiled. "Perhaps because you have not been in the company of those who offered them when they were so true."

"I find I am...uncomfortable with your obvious flirtation. If you wish to have sexual relations with me, I do not find myself overly desirous of you in that manner at this time."

"Well then clearly I will have to time my flirtations better."

"I think your luck is poorly sought. I find Nathaniel Howe quite agreeable."

"Alas, I think our terse archer is spoken for."

"By whom? I will remove her from the equation."

Anders eyebrow rose at the idea of killing someone simply because Velanna wanted in someone's breeks. "Not if you want her to help you find your sister you won't."

"The Commander of the Wardens is his mate?" She looked confused and even a little hurt.

"I don't know about mate, but there's certainly something there. I think she might take objection to your...pursuit of him."

"Ah. This is...most unsatisfactory," she mused, crossing her arms over her chest and looking away from him thoughtfully.

"Well then perhaps you will allow me to remedy your mood."

She snapped her gaze back to him. "You pursue me relentlessly, mage. I question your skill if you are so intent."

He stepped into her personal space and she stepped back, his voice low. "My skill is not what you should worry about. What _you_ should worry about," he touched a finger to her sternum and she drew her chest away from him, curling her shoulders inward, still eyeing him suspiciously, "is your ability to keep up." He winked at her and walked away, leaving her...curious.

# # # # # #

"Found those," Elissa nodded at two bundles of letters, one wrapped in ribbon and the other merely gathered together in a haphazard stack.

"Hm?" He stepped further into her bedroom, which was transitioning many of its more official items to the office in the adjoining room. That one had its own door, which would prevent those on official business from having to trek through her sleeping chambers. In the meantime, there were boxes in both rooms, and the desk still faced the door and sat in the far corner near her bed.

"Thought you might take them to Delilah next time you are in Amaranthine. It's her handwriting. Perhaps they're _love letters_," she joked, and he snorted, trying to puzzle out a path to them as she lightly hopped between boxes. "I've been here three months. How do I have so much..._crap_?"

"Running an arling is a lot of paperwork," he commented with a tiny smile.

"You're telling me," she said, her attention back on sorting the dusty bound books and the loose leaves of paper, separate again from the finer parchment and the occasional more important document on vellum. "I keep asking Alistair to remind me why he thought this was a good idea. I'm rubbish at this."

Nathaniel reached down to lift a dingy book from one of the crates. "I suppose he thought it a prize," he said casually, and she froze, looking up at him with wide eyes.

"Nate, I'm sorry. I...my mouth gets away from me sometimes."

He didn't look at her, just opened the book and studied its contents. "I remember." He closed the book and handed it over to her. "Sheep."

She took it from him with a curious look. "Sheep?"

"Yes. Sheep and pigs and other livestock given as tribute or tax. Old, but not too old. Might be useful to ensure that none of the farmers are holding out on you."

"I doubt that," she said with an uneasy laugh.

"You protect their lands, do you not? Govern them? It is your right to be given proper tribute to feed your soldiers and now Wardens. You can't be such a soft touch with them. That riot the other day? That will only cause more problems. You bow too easily to their whims, and they will take advantage of that."

"That's what Varel said," she admitted with a sigh.

"Varel has known the arling and its governance for many years. It wouldn't go amiss to listen to him," he cautioned.

She pressed her lips together and nodded. "Thank you. But...take the letters. Before they get," she gestured at her maze of crates, "mixed up with something else."

He leaned over to lift them off the desk, his chest brushing her shoulder for a moment. They froze as he drew away, faces inches away, and he could feel her breath on his lips just as she could smell him. He backed away before anything could be done about the closeness.

"I'll make sure she gets them."

"Yes. Yes. Thank you," she said quickly, and went back to her sorting, not looking up at him. But where her hair was swept up off her neck in a messy ponytail, he saw the flush on her jaw and smiled.

She did not look up until after she was sure he was gone, her skin hot. Inhaling and exhaling, she calmed herself, and went back to tossing items in and out of boxes.

He returned to the mess, and sat down with a bowl of cooling porridge and a jar of honey, which he liberally spooned into the porridge to sweeten it. He leafed through the letters, noting that the ones tied with ribbon were her early letters to the younger son of the arl of White River. Their father had not approved, and Delilah had been forbidden to contact him again. She had been upset for a long time, and he wondered if that was when she had begun to hate their father. Both sons were killed in the Blight, as he recalled, leaving the arl childless. He set those letters aside, and without much attention to detail, sifted through the unbound stack. He caught one with his name on it, sealed and ready to be sent.

As it was addressed to him, he cracked the seal and unfolded it. It was dated a little over two years ago, mere months before he was to return from the Marches; months before the events which changed the landscape he was returning to in so many ways.

_Nathaniel,_

_Father has left for Denerim with Thomas, appointing a man I do not know as seneschal for the length of his stay there. I do not like the man, and often consult Varel about some of the decisions this man has made. I worry that Father will drain the people of Amaranthine with this man's help (I believe his name to be Edwin?) to fund his extravagances in Denerim - likely Thomas's drinking habit as well. One might hope that Father would draw the line at bleeding dry his own arling to support Thomas's wenching, but I never know these days._

_Elissa asks after you - your letters grow infrequent, and I know it must be because you are traveling, but it worries her. Search me, but I swear she is truly in love with you. She is rubbish with needlepoint, but asked me what your favorite colors were - be warned, I have no idea what she might be crafting, but be grateful for it, as she frets over her poor skill in an obtuse sort of way. I admit that I was reluctant to accept your choice - she seemed frivolous, just as Father called her, with her mucking about with the castle guard playing at swords and such. I have exchanged a few missives with her, and find her to be quite amusing. Your common dry humors will surely infuriate everyone, but some things must be borne, I suppose. She seems earnest in her desire to be a good wife for you, and struggles, albeit admirably, familiarizing herself with the household tasks that she will be responsible for once she is arlessa._

_On that note, I have to confide in you that I have another worry. There has been talk about Father making Thomas the heir instead of you. I don't know how I might confirm this without asking straight out, but I have a worrying feeling. Thomas would do the job poorly, but there is something Father has confided in Thomas which has made Thomas more his creature than he ever was. He has developed poorly in your absence, outside of the drinking and wenching. I worry for him, and find almost no trace of the rambunctious boy I helped raise. He speaks sharply to everyone, and emulates Father in the worst possible ways._

_I do not know what you will return home to, but be assured that I am on your side, and that you have a young woman who will make you a fine wife. I am hopeful that the worries I confess to you are without weight, and that next time I see you, you will be taking control of the Vigil's garrison as heir presumptive and preparing for your marriage._

_All my love,_

_Delilah_


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: There is an end in sight! This will be 12 chapters, working through the Awakening plotline, and then we're going to take the yellow brick road out into the fiction part of fanfiction. Keep your eyes peeled for updates as they become available.

Bioware owns this.

* * *

_Dearest Elissa,_

_I hope Amaranthine is treating you well? How is the weather? Would you happen to have a spare room? I ask because Eamon has paraded no fewer than a baker's dozen of eligible young ladies before me in the last two weeks. They all have lovely manners and proper breeding, and wear very pretty dresses (I guess?) but nary a one knows the pommel of a dagger from the pointy end, as our dear Antivan used to say. I insisted to Eamon that I had every intention of actually having something to talk about with my wife, and spending much of my life as a soldier means that maybe she should have at least been a tomboy as a child, perhaps gotten dirty now and again just for the fun of it. I know we're still months away from that deadline we talked about, but I was hoping Eamon would let me be for a little while. Apparently the lack of an heir the last time around makes the nobles a bit twitchy. Frankly all this 'here have a wife' nonsense is making __me_ _a bit twitchy._

_Could I hide in Amaranthine? No one knows me, I'm sure of it. Never been there before in my life. Well, except for that one time. But if I don't wear my shiny kingly armor, I'm sure I'll blend in._

_I do owe you that royal audience, after all._

_Alistair_

# # # # # #

"Get a look at that elf," Anders elbowed him and spoke out of the side of his mouth as they walked past Velanna on their way towards the library. She was examining a tapestry and apparently not pleased with it. "Hello Velanna," he said cheerfully, and Velanna appraised the two of them with suspicion.

"I've seen her, Anders," Nathaniel pointed out. "You've pointed her out to me several times, if you recall," he added dryly.

"Oh I remember. I just thought warranted a bit of extra notice if she's going to parade around the keep like that. Her bits are barely covered," he added, pushing open the door to the library. "And I like a woman with tattoos," he said louder, now that they were out of earshot, as he took his customary seat and began resetting the chess board.

"She is...not a pleasant woman."

"What, and you're just a ray of sunshine, are you?" he asked, and held up two hands clutched around the pawns for Nathaniel to chose a color. "You're just sour that she doesn't take a hint."

"Hm," was the only reply he offered to the second charge, but to the first: "I see no reason to burst with excessive cheer, as some do..."

"Freedom's a beautiful thing!" Anders grinned, setting up the white pieces on his side. "I keep saying that, but I don't think any of you really understand," he muttered. "Point being, however, I don't care if she smiles before, she'll definitely be smiling after," he said lecherously, but looked up briefly to see Nathaniel looking slightly disappointed. "What? I'm a mage, she's a mage, we have the interlocking bits, and it's not as though my pursuits of our fair Commander are turning out all that successfully. I got more action in the Tower." He moved his first piece, and Nathaniel countered with a look that was almost a smile.

"Turned you down, did she?"

"Repeatedly. But in the nice way, as though it had nothing whatsoever to do with me," Anders was now looking at him pointedly, and he ignored the mage, removing a white pawn from the board and setting it aside.

"Your move."

Anders slid another pawn forward. "Actually, I'm thinking it's yours."

"Yes, that is generally how it goes, or have you forgotten the rules already?" Nathaniel slid his rook, purposely misunderstanding Anders's oblique references.

"Stop being so obtuse. What's the story there? There's obviously a story."

"Ask Elissa."

"Tried that, no dice."

"Well then you're out of luck."

"Except it seems that in a story of two people, there are, in fact, two people who could enlighten me. One avenue as been closed..."

"And you will get nothing from me. It is not your concern."

"Funny, she said it wasn't my 'beeswax'," he finger-quoted the word.

Nathaniel snorted and took another pawn. "You're not paying attention to the game."

"I'm using the game as a tool to get you to spill the beans. Work with me here, Nate."

"Please do not call me that."

"What, Nate? Special pet name?"

"What would it mean to you if I told you everyone who called me Nate is dead? Would that deter you at all?"

"Not at all. Means there's an opening. Plus, I can set you on fire with just a twitch of my fingers. I'm not worried." He removed a black pawn with a look of triumph, waving it in Nathaniel's face. "Besides, you're a liar. I've heard the Commander call you that."

Nathaniel sighed, and Anders, feeling the fringes of victory, allowed the silence to stretch for several moves, broken only by the monotonous ticking of the large clock in the corner and the sound the carved stone pieces made as they slid across the granite board.

"Talking to you is like putting up a public notice," Nathaniel began.

"Lips are sealed. Promise. Now give me the goods."

"If Elissa wished you to know, she would tell you."

"And clearly she does not wish me to know. But is that for your benefit or hers? Come on, I promise I won't squeal."

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow at him and took his knight, placing his king in check. "Check. Your intense desire to know makes me disbelieve your promise of silence."

"My intense desire to know is born of a burning curiosity."

"Perhaps it is a rash. Maybe you should have it looked at," Nathaniel replied calmly.

"You're killing me here. Just tell me."

Nathaniel sighed and internally, Anders was experiencing a whoop of victory which externally only showed itself in his grin.

"We were betrothed, several years ago."

Anders could not have looked more shocked. He expected a dirty affair when they didn't know each other's names, not something so serious. "Ha ha, very funny. Now tell me the truth."

"That's the only truth you will get from me. Check."

Anders moved his king again, but clearly had limited options, and was merely prolonging the inevitable. "So that's a bit sticky, isn't it? As I understand she killed your father."

"Merely one of the reasons it is 'sticky' but yes, that is a contributing factor."

"So you and the Commander..." he trailed off.

"No."

"Oh how sweet!"

"It was several years ago, Anders. She was practically a child. Hardly appropriate."

"And yet if you had been betrothed when she was a wee thing and there was no inappropriate behavior whatsoever, I doubt the two of you would be acting like such children now."

"I had not seen her for over three years when she recruited me."

"So what, did you break the engagement off?"

Nathaniel looked thoughtful for a moment. "Check. No, actually."

"So you are, it seems, _still_ engaged?"

"I doubt it. We have both acknowledged that it was a tie that formerly bound us as opposed to presently."

Anders grinned and slid his bishop forward. "Check_mate_."

"What?" Nathaniel looked down, and realized that while he was chasing Anders's king on the far side of the board, Anders had been setting up an army on his side. Clearly his concentration had been compromised.

Anders stood up from the small table, and stretched his arms. "I'm just saying. That's yours. Have at it."

"_Have at it?_ This is not a wood chopping competition, Anders. We are no longer betrothed."

Anders stuck his tongue between his teeth. "So you're telling me that little bit of pewter with the Howe crest on it she wears around her neck isn't a betrothal token, then?"

Nathaniel had no reply, and Anders swanned off, whistling to himself.

# # # # # #

"Anders is under the impression we are still betrothed."

She stopped mid-chew, frozen with her cheek full of bread and a spoon headed for her mouth. She stared, wide-eyed, chewing the bread quickly (though with mixed success), to get it out of her mouth to speak. "Excuse me, _what_? What exactly, or should I say _who_ exactly, gave him the impression we were ever betrothed in the first place?"

Nathaniel had no reply, and she sighed. "Nate, he _weasels_. Have you not figured that out? He weasles and he _wheedles_ and he persists and _why did you tell him?_That's like posting a public notice! There were three people in this keep who knew. You, me, and Varel. I had to tell Varel because he was about to tie me up and send me to Weisshaupt and ask for a replacement because they'd put a looney in charge when I declined to hang you."

"I highly doubt that. Varel is very loyal and principled. If I remember correctly, it got him in a fair bit of trouble, but I doubt he would have sent you back like a bad dinner."

"He's going to tell everyone. He can promise he'll keep a secret, and he'll believe it himself, but the first person to look at him sideways, which will probably be _Sigrun_, he'll just let it spill like a poorly constructed levy. Between the two of them, everyone will know by dinner," she let her head fall forward, just to the left of her bowl of stew, and proceeded to thump her head on the table lightly.

"It is not as bad as all that. The past is the past, you said so yourself. We are both adults."

"And we're the only ones," she pointed out. He could only stare at her, and she sighed again. "You're right. You're right! It was going to come out sooner or later..."

"He noticed that you wear..." he gestured at her chest, where he could see the leather thong now had two knots in it.

"Sod it," she said, exasperated, and got up to leave, abandoning her meal.

"Elissa?"

She turned around in the doorway.

"I asked you once, and you did not answer me. I think you owe me an answer, considering the questions it raised are causing you ample exasperation." She reached up to touch it under her tunic. "Why do you still wear it?"

She stared at him, and chewed on her lip for a moment. Then she covered the distance between them, and laid a brief, soft kiss on his lips. "That's why," she said quietly, and moved past him to exit out the other doorway.

He reached up to touch his lips, wondering if he had imagined it.

# # # # # # #

"So. When you said you had no claim on him, what you meant was exactly the opposite," Sigrun cornered her. It had been exactly two hours since she and Nathaniel had spoken. And she had kissed him - she still wondered who took control of her limbs and made her do that.

"It wasn't just mine to tell. I had thought we weren't telling anyone, because it didn't matter now. But he told Anders, and Anders has clearly told you, and now I wonder why I didn't just tell everyone at the start. Now it sounds like we were keeping a dirty secret. We weren't!"

"Yeah, it definitely looks like a dirty secret," Sigrun agreed, and patted her on the arm patronizingly with a forced frown that was hiding a smile.

"And if I had said, at the start, 'we used to be betrothed', no one would have asked questions."

"You're right. Guess you'll know for next time," she said, and then kicked her in the shin.

"Ow!"

"That's for not telling me first. Having to hear it from Anders is like someone telling you second hand that your own mother died. It feels a little dirty, because you were supposed to already be in the know," she was frowning, but mostly putting it on. Her feelings had been hurt a little, but at least Elissa herself hadn't told Anders.

"I'm not good at…friends. You're going to have to help me out sometimes."

"Rule number one," Sigrun held up a finger. "Tell me everything. Rule number two, trust my judgment. Rule number three…" she trailed off. "I'm going to have to get back to you on rule number three."

Elissa smiled. "In the interest of rule number one, Alistair, who has more or less proposed to me, is visiting the keep to check up on his Wardens and to make sure that we're settling in."

Sigrun raised her eyebrows. "Proposed to by the king, eh? You've got men enough to share the wealth. Got a prince or a minor noble you can bear to part with? And an even better question, does he know about you and Nathaniel?"

"About me and Nathaniel what? There is no me-and-Nathaniel. He knows about the past history, if that's what you mean."

"Didn't he already wish you well before I showed up?"

"Yes."

"And he decided to visit again…when?"

"After I told him about Nathaniel and that business with the Architect. Though I don't wonder if maybe he should stay in Denerim until we sort this Mother/Father nonsense out. He is king, after all. It wouldn't do to have him come visit and be killed by darkspawn after he managed to avoid it for over a year when we were practically _swimming_ in them."

"Ah."

"What 'ah'?"

"Coming to check on his investment," Sigrun said sagely, nodding continuously.

"Run that by me again?"

"Measuring up the competition. Oh this is going to be _fun_."

She looked at Sigrun, wide-eyed. "No, actually. No, it will not be fun. No fun at all. Not a good idea," she insisted flatly, looking slightly stunned that she had not connected the dots herself.

"When will he be here?"

"He hasn't left Denerim yet. Maybe if I can get a quick rider, I can give Eamon some ammunition about strange darkspawn that will make him keep Alistair far away from here."

"I'd write that note now, if I were you."

She stared at Sigrun for a moment before leaping up from the table and running towards the castle exit that came out near the stables. Sigrun just laughed to herself. This was better than that Rivanni romance she'd been reading. And here all she had to do was become a Grey Warden. Fantastic.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Things can only go unsaid for so long. In this chapter, things are said, other things aren't, and no one really listens.

Disclaimer: Bioware owns it.

* * *

"And the part where he's basically an ambulatory decomposing corpse doesn't really bother you?" Nathaniel raised an eyebrow at her, leaning back in the chair across from her.

"He's a Grey Warden," she replied, breaking a wax seal on another letter.

"A possessed one."

She shrugged. "What did you want me to say 'no, sorry Spirit of Justice, us mortals have no use for your superpowers and creepy possession, please go find some other cause to champion'? Hardly."

"Anders was right. You collect people. It's…a little unsettling."

"A good team has variation. I'm merely…cultivating that variation."

"Now including the dead along with the living. Delightful."

"Sigrun is dead."

"In the philosophical sense, not the literal one."

"Since when do you use words like 'philosophical'?"

"Since you started including corpses in your roster and thought it was acceptable."

"Well his body used to be a Grey Warden," she shrugged.

He raised an eyebrow. "Yes, but it's...well..._creepy_."

She let out a little laugh, and he smiled. Not a big wide smile, but a small one, amused at her laughter.

"You should do that more often," she said, darting her eyes up to look at him and then back down at the letter she was writing.

"Hmm?"

"Smile. It's..." she looked up, her heart in her throat. "It's been awhile since I've seen you smile."

There was a silence between them - not heavy and uncomfortable, but contemplative. They had not discussed the kiss from the previous week. Instead, they had moved forward, their interactions looser and more familiar, with new lines drawn, but not breeching the gap of affection. They did not touch or joke overmuch, they simply were less guarded, less concerned that they themselves or the other would make a mistake, cross a line not yet ready to be crossed. That tiny aspect alone seemed to be a breath exhaled, and the rest of the Wardens (except for Velanna, who seemed eternally sour-faced and uncomfortable) unconsciously picked up on it, their demeanors eased in collective company.

"Yes. Well," he replied, avoiding discussing the issue further.

"Sorry. I...I'm not good at this being friends thing either. I...forget what it was like to just be your friend." She found that, with an expansive desk (which had now been moved into her office) between them, the words did not seem so dangerous or fragile.

"I don't think I ever knew."

She snorted and fiddled with the feather on her quill. "Me neither. I think I always had a crush on you."

His mouth quirked up in a half smile. "I could tell. It used to bother me, because you were a _little girl_. But then...you were a young woman, and I think I missed what came in between."

"More of the same – fighting with Fergus, _actually_ fighting with Fergus when my father and the captain of the guard were teaching us how to fight properly…you didn't miss much."

There was another spate of silence that Nathaniel broke with a furrow to his brow. The letter she'd tossed aside and was presumably replying to carried the royal seal.

"A letter from Alistair?"

"Mmhmm," she agreed, penning her response.

"I thought Grey Wardens were supposed to be apolitical," he began, watching her carefully.

"We are, but this is Alistair. Me, Alistair, and the archdemon used to be drinking buddies," she chuckled. "He's trying to find an excuse to come out here and hide from all the noble daughters and widows that Eamon seems to think would make good wives. He wants to hide behind me as though that would keep Eamon from marching him into the Chantry," she mused with a small smile on her face. "He's a bit…alone out there in Denerim. This whole Warden-Commander business," she didn't take her eyes off her letter, but waved her free hand in the air, "pulled me away from advising him and left him in the lurch, as it were. I feel a little bad, but, well…" she trailed off, lifting the letter slightly off the desk to re-read what she had written.

He was silent for a moment, trying to decide if he wanted to say what was on his mind. They had an attachment from before, and Grey Warden or no, her family was still quite highly ranked in the nobility. When it came to potential wives, Nathaniel did not have to spend too much time thinking about where Elissa might stand in that list. He opted for a less direct approach.

"Why didn't you write to me?"

She lowered the letter, her eyes narrowed and cocked her head, considering him before answering. "Sorry, there was a Blight on," she began, strangely sarcastic.

"Afterwards."

"I was helping Alistair run Ferelden. Not a lot of time for myself," she said carefully, bristling. "Why didn't you write to _me_?"

"I was under the impression you were _literally_ dead. Fergus too."

She snorted, going back to her letters. "Did your _father_ tell you that?"

"Stop trying to start a fight," he warned.

"Who me? Why would I try to start a fight when you were clearly just curious as to why I didn't just run off a letter somewhere in between my family being slaughtered in the middle of the night and trying to keep the whole of Thedas from being ravaged by darkspawn. Of course I'm not trying to start a fight," she didn't look up at him, but rolled her shoulders and nodded her head as she spoke, her body language speaking to her ire.

"A message of any sort would have been nice," he pointed out blandly. "I grieved you, thought you dead. Forgive me if it's difficult to simply leap back into our former relationship now that you have revealed yourself amongst the living."

She broke the nib of her quill against the parchment, and ink bled profusely, ruining the page. He watched her skin flush, and she snapped her head up to glare at him. "Stop that. Stop blaming me! And I have never asked you to 'leap' back into our former anything! I thought we were trying to be _friends_!"

"Blaming you?" he sounded amused, and remained relaxed in his chair, hands laced together and elbows resting on the carved arms. "Blaming you for what?"

"For surviving!"

"Tell me exactly why you think I am blaming you for surviving."

"I killed your father and I survived! He was a bastard, Nathaniel, face it! The man helped start a civil war and killed my family in cold blood! I'm sorry I didn't die defending my family like you wish you had! I tried to, believe me! Duncan, the Grey Warden who recruited me? My father made him promise to see me to safety! He _dragged me away_ from my parents, my father bleeding out on the corn-dusted larder floor like an _animal_, and my mother ready to die with him just to give me the chance to escape! I'm sorry that maybe I wanted to keep it a secret for a little while, hoping your sick bastard of a father would think my corpse one of the many desecrated bodies on a pyre and not come running after _me_!"

Nathaniel just stared at her while she yelled herself purple, both of them remaining seated.

"I had no idea what he was planning," he replied, his voice flat, but his eyes flashing on her implied insult.

"I _know_ that! I thought _you_ were dead! I hadn't heard from you in over a month! After I escaped, my first thought of you was that you had died over there, far from home, and your father, who _hated_ me," she ignored the tears that had stung for only a moment before slipping from her eyes and sliding down her face, "for some reason I don't even understand, _didn't tell me_ because he didn't think I deserved to know! I thought you were _dead_, surely as you thought me dead, and seeing you again? Nathaniel I…" Her voice lost its volume and intensity, and her next words were nearly a whisper. Meanwhile, he had not moved from his seat. "I wanted you to take me in your arms so that I might pretend everything that had happened…" she dropped her gaze to her ruined parchment, "…was all a horrible nightmare."

He was quiet for several moments, and then there was the sound of wood against stone as he pushed his chair back. She thought he was going to leave, and didn't want to watch him go, so she kept her eyes, burning with tears she was trying to blink back even though the dam had already broken, focused in a soft blur on her letters.

"Elissa," he said quietly, and she didn't move, just closed her eyes slowly, forcing two more tears down her face.

"Elissa," he repeated, and she looked up at him, red and blotchy and miserable. "Come here," he said, standing close enough to her desk that it was closer than before, but far enough way that she would still need to make the effort to put herself in physical contact with him. She stared at him for several moments, and then stood up from her desk, and went to him, allowing him to fold her into his arms. She tucked her face against his tunic, and allowed herself to cry. With deft fingers, her hastily pinned hair rippled down her back, and he stroked his fingers over it – long, smooth strokes from the crown of her head to the ends of her slightly wavy tresses and then back up to the top to do it again.

"I don't know how to do this, Nathaniel. I don't know how to be the woman who killed your father, the woman who did all these horrible things. I did them because I had to, but now I have to live with it, and I don't know _how_."

"Time," he said quietly, feeling a chill where her tears had dampened his tunic, her face still pressed against him as she spoke.

"I didn't want to become arlessa of Amaranthine this way. I hated Alistair a little bit for doing this, though I don't think he understood why. I had imagined it for so long, but this is not how. This isn't it. I was supposed to have you beside me."

"You do."

"I don't. Nothing is the same."

He didn't reply, just continued to stroke her hair. She quieted, her breathing slowing, becoming regular instead of riddled with her waning emotion. He pushed her away a little bit, to take her by the shoulders so that she looked up at him. Then his hands were on her face, forcing her to look at him while he spoke.

"Listen to me. Nothing has turned out the way we planned. So many things have come between us. But hear this, understand this: I never stopped loving you. Even now, knowing all I know, I can't hate you the way I think I should. I hate that I can't have our perfect story with you – you are not the only one who had dreams of that life. But do you hear me? _I still love you_. Maker help me, but it's the truth." He explained each concept as though to a child, eyes intent and focused. They darted back and forth, trying to puzzle out her reaction to his confession, but all he saw was confusion. He dipped his head to hears, still holding her face, and kissed her.

It was like the one in the mess – gentle, just a meeting of lips, but this time it was she who remained immobile while he did the kissing instead of the other way around. She let his lips move over hers, offering no protest when he kissed her again, only pulling away slightly when he made to catch his breath.

"This is not friends," she said quietly, not looking up at him, and tried to move out of his embrace, but he didn't let her, instead tilting her chin up so that she looked him in the eye.

"I have seen you face down darkspawn and run after them, crying for their grisly deaths, and you can't even look at me when you're pushing me away?"

"I-I'm not. Pushing you away, I mean."

"Feels like it," he said carefully, scrutinizing her blush and darting gaze.

"It's simply too confusing!" She pulled again and he let her go, let her stand in front of the little window with her arms wrapped around her body as though protecting herself.

"You said it first. You said you still cared for me. I was under the impression that meant I was free to express the same."

"I do," she replied quietly, and turned to face him, arms still hugging her torso. "But is this what you really want? I'm not confused, Nathaniel. I never stopped loving you –"

"Nor has your hearing improved, I see," he quipped, crossing his arms over his chest. "Did I not just confess the same moments ago? Or did I do that to some other obstinate woman?" He frowned, widening his stance, preparing for another argument.

"But you're just getting your feet back under you. You've just found your family again, and for you, this is all unsettled. Being a Grey Warden, being the last of the Howes. I've had years to acclimate to all these things you've only been dealing with for a couple of months. I don't…I don't want to start this with you only to have you regret it later. I can't…I won't do that, Nathaniel."

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe it's my life and I'd like to make my own choices once in awhile? Stop deciding what you think is best for me! I'm not the bloody King of Ferelden that you can just order to and fro like a lapdog!" She flinched when he raised his voice, curling her lip to respond, but he plowed through. "Allow me to make my own mistakes!" She stared at him, and he relented, softening his tone. "And for the record, being with you would not be one of those mistakes. You have me beside you. You said you never gave up on us, even when you thought me dead? I never gave up on you." She continued to stare at him, and confessions continued to spill from his lips even though she had not given him a single reason to keep doing so – her body still rigid. "Even when I was sure you were dead, my heart…" he stopped, frowned. "Maker's breath, I'm not making a fool of myself anymore," he said, suddenly angry, and he spun on his heel and started to walk away.

She watched him do it, watched him cross the room, and reach for the door latch. Her words were caught in her throat, and all she could think was that she was a failure, and that she'd hurt him, but he made her so _mad _and then…he was gone, the sounds of his boots receding down the hallway.

"Nate," she said to herself, and clenched her teeth, trying to stem the tide of tears that threatened again. Her attempt did not hold for long, and she reached up to roughly wipe the moisture off her cheeks. She reached again for the dagger, and with no ceremony or dramatics, she severed the cord around her neck once more. She opened the drawer and after only a moment's hesitation, dropped the pewter token with a shallow thud into the mostly empty drawer. She shoved the drawer shut roughly and strode through the connecting door to her bedchamber. She shed one boot and then another, then her belt, her vest, her socks and then her breeks, leaving a trail from the door to her bed. The tunic she wore under it all was meant to be worn under a dress, but she'd been lax in setting things out for her laundress, and it was the last clean one she had. She climbed into her bed and curled into a ball, and let herself cry, stifling the volume with the quilt that she held tight to her face, soaking up the tears.

She fell asleep in the middle of the day.

# # # # # #

"That from last night? Gave me indigestion, I think. No more mutton for me," Anders commented, raising an eyebrow as he came into the mess to watch Nathaniel violently shredding bread into a bowl of leftover mutton stew.

"Shut up, Anders."

"Whoa, hey," he held up his hands. "What crawled up your arse and died?"

"Leave me alone."

"People always say that when they least want to be left alone," he said, less cheerful and more concerned as he slid onto the bench across from the archer.

"Bugger off," Nathaniel said harshly, and began stabbing the bread into the stew with his spoon, stirring it in with vehemence.

"What's going on?"

"None of your business."

"Well since the Commander has locked herself in her room, I hardly think the two are unrelated," he pointed out as blandly as possible.

"The _Commander_ is none of my concern."

"Is that so?"

Nathaniel looked up from his vigorous meal destruction. "I'm sure you have someone else to bother. How about you go do that?" He looked back down and stabbed a potato in half, scooping it up and shoved it into his mouth. "No one appointed you Warden therapist, so sod off," he muttered with a mouthful of potato.

"You two need to stop this nonsense," Anders said sharply, and Nathaniel looked up, confused at Anders's tone of voice.

"Excuse me?"

"No, really. I'm sick of it. I thought things were going well, you were interacting like normal folk and then she locks herself in her room and you are rebutchering a dead, old sheep in a tin bowl. What in the name Andraste's knickerweasels are you two on about now?"

"Anders, what is and what is not your business seem to be confusing you. This," he stabbed the table with his index finger, "is _not_."

"I'm _making_ it my business, because I've just started to make my home here, and when Mum and Da are fighting, it upsets the children," he barked back, and leaned away from the table, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning.

Nathaniel chewed thoughtfully and glared at Anders, but did not reply, merely refocused his attention on his stew.

"I don't see what's so difficult about the whole damn thing," Anders began again, and Nathaniel pointedly ignored him. "She loves you, you love her, and last time I checked people had happy, stable relationships on less. So what is going on?"

It was silent for several minutes, and then Nathaniel sighed. "She doesn't trust me."

"Why?"

"She suspects my…affections to be insincere. Or at the very least, inconstant. She feels I will come to regret revisiting our previous relationship."

"Will you?"

He looked up. "No. But it matters not if I or you believe it. She does not and that is the end of it. I'm done arguing with her. I'm done being a blasted fool trying to prove myself to her. If this is how she wants it, fine. There are Wardens in the Free Marches, and I belong here even less than I did there. Ships bound for Kirkwall leave every fortnight, and I will be on the next one. I have no intention of staying here and subjecting myself to this nonsense. She made me a Grey Warden, and so I'm stuck with that much. But no one said I had to stay _here _to carry out my duties."

"Nathaniel, really. Would you really leave?"

"I know Kirkwall. I still have acquaintances there. It would be a matter of a pint in a pub to find out where the Wardens in the Marches make their home. There is nothing here for me, and Ferelden certainly doesn't want a Howe within their borders anymore than she does."

Anders was quiet for a moment. "What about your sister?"

"As I said. Ships move back and forth often. Nothing keeping me from visiting. Spending time in Amaranthine does not mean I have to check in with _her_."

Anders sighed. "Don't you get it? She's _scared_."

"And I've given her plenty of room," Nathaniel snapped. "She made the first move, and then rejected me. I've no reason to put up with that."

"How about because you love her?" Anders's voice was quieter as he felt defeat settle upon them. There seemed little to be done to change his mind. He would…miss his friend.

"Yes, well, I'll cure myself of that soon enough. And far from here."

"Is there nothing I can do to change your mind?"

"No," he said fiercely, and Anders pressed his lips together, and rose from the table.

"If she didn't care deeply for you, there was no reason not to hang you the moment she arrived. I think you're making a mistake, Nathaniel. A mistake neither she nor you will recover from. Believe me when I tell you about big mistakes you can't fix later. I know a thing or two about them, and if I had even half a chance at what you have with her, there would be nothing that kept me from it," he said, halfway to the door. "Not even scared heroes who can't figure out how to let people in. You're good with that sort of thing, so jimmy the lock. You're going to have to do it, because she won't."

Nathaniel waited for him to leave, and then pushed the bowl away from himself. It didn't taste very good anyway.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Bioware owns it.

* * *

He packed his few possessions before dawn the next morning, and was lightening the larder's stash of apples and fist-sized hardening biscuits and a small wheel of cheese, even taking a few pieces of dried venison when she found him.

"So you're really doing it, then. You're really leaving."

He looked briefly at her, and she…looked like hell. Miserable. Hair askew, dark circles under her eyes, and above all, she carried herself with an air of defeat he didn't think he'd ever seen before. Her tunic was tucked haphazardly into a circle skirt, and she wasn't wearing any shoes, but merely curled her toes against the chill of the stone floor. He would find it endearing, but…no. No, this is the end of it.

"Yes."

She was quiet, leaning against the door jamb, her shoulder seeming to hold it up while her head lolled against it. She exhaled loudly, but it was only when she let out a scoff that he raised a brow and looked at her again, carefully wrapping a wedge of cheese.

"I'm sorry, okay? I'm…rubbish at being a _person_, it seems, and I…I don't know what to do to make you stay."

"You've made up your mind, and I've made up mine," he said, buckling his pack. "There's nothing left to say."

She sighed, as though each word she spoke was being dragged out of her. He merely waited, a part of him wishing…this could've turned out differently.

"I wish it didn't have to be like this."

"If wishes were griffons," he replied flatly, and lifted his pack once, jostling it to settle the contents and ensure they were packed well.

She stepped further into the room and sat down at the small table, the one they all used to gather around before they had that nice long table in the mess. She folded her hands together on the surface and waited for the words to come.

"_I know you're trying to have manners and all, saying 'pass the potatoes', but all you have to do is stretch your hand a bit," Anders says, passing the bowl over to Nathaniel._

"_My mother would kill me for the state of my table manners," Elissa notes, one hand still wrapped around a chunk of bread as the other uses her fork to deftly stab a potato as the bowl floats by._

"_They are _pretty_ bad," Anders admits. "I mean, they raise some real hellions in the Tower, but you, my dear lady, would put them all to shame."_

"_This is what happens when there's no one around to shake their finger at me," she mumbles. "Maybe I should hang that picture of Nathaniel's mother in here – that'd be enough guilt to set me to rights, I'm sure."_

_Nathaniel chokes, and Anders claps him on the back. "That's not funny," he wheezes._

"_I thought it was," she smiles, and it is one of few she's offered him as they teeter back and forth between struggling to sort each other out, get their bearings, and a thick blanket of passive-aggressive posturing._

"I…I'm sorry. For earlier," she clarifies, as though there were any other reason he'd be trying to escape in the early dawn hours.

"No reason to apologize if it's how you really feel." He decides he doesn't want to make this easy on her – he doesn't want her fake excuses or equivocating diplomacy. He wants a little proof that she's really human underneath all that armor she's piled upon herself. He wants to see her a little bare – a few tears are no longer enough.

She swallowed, and he watched her carefully. "But what if…" she trailed off and looked up at him. "What if it's not?"

He crossed his arms over his chest. "What if what's not? The part where you baselessly accuse me of still holding you responsible for my father's actions, or the part where you think I can't possibly know what I want?"

"Both. I was unfair, and I'm sorry."

"Yes. Well." He puttered, tightening a strap, and she took the prolonging for what it was – a second chance.

"I keep thinking that you're going to change your mind. That you can't possibly still…feel that way about me."

"And what about you? You're allowed to have held onto us and I was what? Supposed to forget you and my promise?"

"So much has happened," she began awkwardly, and he slammed the heel of his hand on the table with a dull thud.

"You keep _saying_ that!" He raised his voice and she flushed, surprised. "That's no excuse. It has been just as long for you as for me, and I want to know why I'm expected to be the changeable one, why I am being held to a different standard!"

"I don't know!" she shouted back. "I don't _know_." She blinked back tears, and he refused to let them sway him.

"Well, until you do know," he hefted the pack in one hand and slung it over his back, grabbing for his quiver and bow, laid across the table.

"Stop," she reached out for his hand, wrapping her fingers around his when he grasped for the strap of his quiver.

"Why? Give me one good reason to stay. Give me one good reason to continue subjecting myself to _your_ changeable whims. I may not have much pride left, but what I have has taken a beating, Elissa. What do you want from me?"

She stared at their hands, and chewed on the inside of her lip, her brow furrowed. "So much has gone wrong, I can't seem…to let the good things happen. I've seen demon trickery and I've had the most horrible nightmares. I've imagined things I can't even put words to, and nothing, _nothing_ in the last three years has been good or right. I've had a bit of fun, sure, and made friends the likes of which I will never again have in my entire life. But it was all because horrible things happened, and even more horrible things were _happening_ and after awhile, the only good thing I was holding on to, the thought of seeing you again, even that seemed to rot away into impossibility. I've been going through the motions, and I can't seem to let myself believe that this is real, that I have…another chance."

"And what are you going to do with that knowledge? I won't stay here if we don't want the same things. It would be unfair to both of us."

"I want this. I want to try again," she looked up, blurting the words as though they had been captured in a bubble and the bubble had only now just burst.

"And now I find it is me who hesitates," he says cautiously. "Are you sure?"

She sat there, picking at her cuticles. "You're going to have to steer me in the right direction once in awhile, but yes," she looked up at him. "I'm sure." With renewed courage, she rose from the table and went to him, reaching her hands up to his face, and only hesitated a moment before she kissed him.

"What made you change your mind?"

She sighed, and he wrapped her in his arms, laying her head on his shoulder. "Sigrun told me you were leaving. And…I knew I should have stopped you yesterday. I wanted to; I just couldn't get the words past my teeth. I knew that if you left, I would never see you again. And I couldn't…let that happen."

"And what happens next time you doubt me?"

She let out a little chuckle that didn't match his severe tone, and hugged him tightly. "You're going to snap me out of it," she said, pulling away. "Won't you?"

He considered her for a moment, and then kissed her again, a proper kiss, the one that should have happened upstairs if she hadn't spooked.

"Cook will be up soon. Come back to bed." He raised an eyebrow and she smiled. "No funny business, just…come to bed with me."

He kept hold of her hand, setting his things just inside the kitchen door, and let her guide him upstairs. She led him to her bed, and pushed him to sit, kneeling to take off his shoes and socks. She shucked her skirt, her tunic coming down to her knees, and crawled to the far side of the bed and climbed under the covers. She lifted the quilt, and with a careful look at her, he slid in, and she cuddled against him, curling into a fetal position. Hesitantly, he wrapped his arm over her waist and settled his face in the curve of her neck. It was a matter of moments before she fell asleep, and he followed not long after, surprised at how, after so many sleepless nights, he is pulled into the Fade so easily.

# # # # # #

He woke up alone. He stretched out an arm, and the sheets she had occupied earlier that morning were cool to the touch. He wondered when she'd crawled out of bed, and how he had not managed to feel her do so, as the way the bed was shoved to the wall, she would have had to climb over him. He sighed. While they'd come to an agreement, nothing was really _solved_ and he felt it keenly, lying in her bed, without her waking up next to him.

The sun was up, but it was still a couple hours before it would reach its zenith, and there was no shortage of things to do - an extra pair of hands were always welcome when it came to the masonry work that echoed from dawn til dusk, there were always farmholds to assist with planting and harvesting, or rebuilding. Darkspawn attacks may have pulled down houses and lean-tos, but lives had to go on, and so back up they went.

Somewhere along the line, those who knew his father and lived within the walls of the keep (and some without), had come to realize he was _not_ his father, and began to treat him accordingly - it seemed that falling into place as her second had happened without any particular attention to the happening. Men and women of all stations brought issues to him outside of normal court days, and he brought them to her, no matter what their personal attitudes towards each other had been at the time. Pondering how that may or may not change if he were to genuinely become her second in name instead of just circumstance kept him in her bed longer than he intended to be.

"You're up," she said quietly, slipping in the door.

He swung his legs off the bed. "Why didn't you wake me?"

She pressed her lips together. "How much sleep have you been getting?" When he couldn't give her an exact number, she smiled and approached him, leaning in to kiss his cheek before continuing to her armoire, which had apparently been her purpose in entering the room. "Not enough, apparently. So I let you sleep."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Keeping track, are you?"

"Isn't that what I'm supposed to do? Nag you about things?" she asked off-handedly, burrowing into the armoire, the door obscuring all but her bum sticking out.

"That's wives," he commented dryly and rubbed at an eye. He hadn't unbraided his hair, and it had gotten tangled while he slept. He started to unbraid his hair, waiting for a response. When she did not offer one, and was clearly now just rooting around in there, because there was no way she hadn't found whatever it was she was looking for by _now_, he decided to just come out and say it.

"Is that what we're doing? Playing house?"

She ducked out, empty-handed, and he began to wonder if she'd just pretended to have a purpose and instead had just come in to check on him, and hadn't had the courage to say as much.

"This is the part where you tell me," she said carefully, flushed from either her baseless exertions in the armoire or because she was being put on the spot.

"I can't be making all the decisions here," he said. "But no, I don't think, considering that fiasco yesterday, we should pick up where we left off three years ago. You were right that we're different people, but unlike you, I do not think these things cannot be worked through."

"That's not what I meant," she began, and he held up his hand.

"I don't want to argue with you. Whether you meant it or not, that's how it sounded, and that's why I was going to leave - because you seemed to not want to try, instead using them as excuses why we couldn't be together." He paused, and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, his feet still bare. "I still haven't missed my ship, if you've changed your mind again," he said, and while it was without heat (he wasn't sure he had any more in him, and considering the year he spent living on vengeance, it was both surprising and not that he had none left), the words were still there. The trust they once had was clearly broken, if they were second-guessing each other all the time.

"No," she said straight away, and he was thankful that she did not consider it. "No, I don't want you to leave. I haven't changed my mind. I just...don't know what comes next."

She looked so distraught, chewing the inside of her lip with her arms crossed over her chest. He had once been affectionate with her, and he was generally not an affectionate person, so it was a struggle to remind himself to be so again - to use it as wordless reassurance when clearly she had backpedaled so much from the girl who had openly sought his affection to the become this one who was afraid to ask for it.

"We take it one day at a time." It felt strange directing her this way - she had always been so forthright, taking her half of anything with a cheerful relish. Now, she tried to carry every menial task associated with the arling and the Wardens, as though no one else could be trusted (though she had never said a word when he had been the ear of many of the arling's commonfolk); and yet in this, she was entirely under his instruction. It wasn't quite what he wanted - he wanted the girl he once knew - but he knew it would take time before she would open herself back up and embrace that person that was still in there, somewhere. He was sure she was merely buried underneath this tangle of responsibilities and strange self-inflicted insecurities.

She closed the small distance between them, and he sat up straighter on the bed, watching her. She was predictable in that way, thinking everything through; whereas when she fought, it was all instinct. The difference was…interesting to observe. She hesitantly leaned in and gave him a brief peck on the lips. She pulled away, but he put a hand on her hip and rose, pulling her back to him.

"I'm not going to see you again until supper," he said, and kept his gaze on her as he slid his hand into the fine curled hair at the nape of her neck, and pulled her closer for a proper kiss. He started slow, and worked them into something with more heat. She returned his insistence, and began to even wrest for dominance, gripping his tunic with one hand and threading the other into his hair, unbraided and silky between her fingers. He permitted her to take over, and the hand that was in his hair became an arm wrapped around his shoulders as she began to push him, ever so slowly, back down onto the bed. He allowed it merely because he was caught up in her - reminded that this is how she used to kiss him - with total abandon in those last few days before he left, when every spare moment they were together was spent wrapped in each other.

_"You hardly give me a chance to greet you," he joked, not entirely adverse to her method of attacking him as soon as he appeared._

_"We'll have two years to talk. You'll write letters, I'll write letters, there'll be plenty of_talking_," she grinned, and allowed her fingers to skim just under the hem of his tunic, skittering across his ribs._

_"You make a convincing argument," he admitted with a smile as he ended up in a chair in the study, and she on his lap. He held her by her waist, and she had her arms around his neck as she made herself quite familiar with his tongue and the backs of each of his teeth._

When he sat suddenly, he jolted and pulled out of reach of her mouth, which was now slightly swollen and reddened. She was balancing herself with one knee on the mattress next to his thigh, her eyes were bright, and he had to smile when she looked slightly put out that he had stopped them.

"We don't have to do all our catching up in one day," he pointed out, and she seemed to suddenly notice that she almost had him back in bed.

"Oh," she said, "oh right," and suddenly loosened her grip on his tunic and climbed off him. He didn't let her get far, and pulled her back to him by the wrist, making her bend slightly, and kissed her once, twice, more gently.

"You don't have to run away," he pointed out, his lips touching her as he spoke, and kissed her again briefly. "I'm going to go help Voldrik this morning, and I'll see you at supper," he promised, and with a small smile, kissed her again when she looked disappointed. He chuckled and nudged her away so he could grab his boots and she was still standing there looking forlorn.

"Oh don't do that," he said, and tugged on his other boot. He stood, and with a single finger, tilted her chin up and kissed her again quickly before heading for the door.

# # # # # #

Sigrun was sharpening her dagger in their new armory (it was indeed a miracle that nothing ill had befallen their merry group when the sharp objects were still stowed in their mess), and didn't look up at first when she heard Elissa approach.

"I see Nathaniel's bow is back in its place. I'm assuming he's not bound for Kirkwall?" she looked up and Elissa was some strange combination of thoughtful and concerned, holding up the doorjamb.

"Not at the moment, no."

"And yet I can't tell if you look happy. You should look happy."

"I don't share well," she admitted, picking at a fingernail. Sigrun laughed, a short bark, and examined her dagger closely. "Once upon a time I wanted nothing more than to be his other half, but I don't know how to do anything halfway anymore. I know he's been handling some of the arling's business on his own, and it's taking me sticking my fingers in my ears to keep from wanting to meddle."

Sigrun shrugged. "So you're a meddler."

"No, I'm a controlling bitch," she muttered dejectedly. "I had to lead Alistair around by the nose even though, rightly, he was the one in charge, and I forget that other people should have input into decisions that I make."

"You've got to relax, girl."

"You're telling me."

"No. Really."

"Yes, because the darkspawn will just wait. I can't even think about relaxing until I have this Architect and Mother malarkey sorted out, and who knows when that will happen? Fate does not want me to have a day off to organize my personal life."

Sigrun shrugged. "Set all darkspawn on fire. Take vacation with sultry-voiced nimble-fingered archer-thief. Come back and stay in bed for a week because you can't walk." Elissa colored a deep red and Sigrun laughed again. "See? Easy. I just mapped it out for you."

"I'll be sure to send out a message. All darkspawn please gather in one place so I may set you ablaze so to further my immediate need to be screwed senseless by Nathaniel Howe," she commented dryly, and there was a cough from behind her and Sigrun snickered. "I hate you," Elissa said without even turning around.

"Have either of you two lovely ladies seen our dear Nathaniel? Clearly he is not screwing the Commander senseless, as she appears to be right here, senses and all," Anders said lightly, and she didn't even have to look at him to reach out and smack him upside the head as he came to stand beside her.

"He's helping Voldrick."

"Ah yes. Manual labor," he mused, and looked down at his hands. "I'm far too delicate for that sort of thing."

Sigrun opened her mouth to reply, but any further comment was lost as Captain Garavel burst into the armory. "There's a darkspawn horde heading for the city!"


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: Bioware owns it.

* * *

"Kill him," she said aloud, leaving it up to anyone to make the blow, and the Architect's messenger was surprised enough that when no less than three onlookers fell upon him, he was dispatched in short order.

"What would you have us do, Commander?" Garavel looked at her, and she heard their objections play over and over in her mind.

"_Oghren, make sure no one burns the place down while I'm gone, eh?"_

"_Gotcha there, Commander. I don't intend on dyin' anytime soon, now do I?" She smiled at him and squeezed his shoulder, recalling the terse, yet less frigid parting after Felsi's more recent visit. Oghren had convinced her to move to the city, and while their marriage was by no means fixed, she was at least a little closer, raising their child._

_She merely nodded at Varel, and there was something in the man's eyes, as though he was seeing her for the last time, and she felt her stomach tighten, wondering if it was really her death she marched to this time._

_Anders, Nathaniel, and Sigrun followed her out of the keep, and she sent a prayer to the Maker that they all survived the day._

"They will defend the keep, I can't let the city fall."

"As you say, Commander," Garavel replied, and while Anders gave her a small smile, Nathaniel still disapproved. She could come up with a hundred reasons, putting words in his mouth until her throat ran dry, but she had darkspawn to fight, and a city to save, so she tried not to care.

When it seems they have succeeded, they pause. The Chantry is full of everyone they've managed to save, but the city guard still stalks the streets and secret places for more survivors.

"Let me have it," she said, hands on her hips. She found him sitting on a crate, catching his breath.

"Hmm?"

"You wanted to say something, back there, when I ordered us to stay."

He nodded, taking a sip from his water pouch. "But I followed you, didn't I?"

She crossed her arms. "Because you didn't have a choice."

He chuckled darkly. "I always have a choice. I thought the city lost," he said, his gaze flitting over broken families and broken people – people he would have left to rot or burn, people who were saved. "But you have given these people hope where there was none before." He did not say what else was on his mind – the army the messenger had told them of – the army that had, by now, certainly set upon the Vigil.

Her jaw clenched briefly, as though she had read his mind – the only sign that she too worried as they rested, what their friends were facing. "The keep is in admirable shape, an excellent defensive outpost, and Varel and Oghren and Justice will defend her. She's in good hands," she asserted.

He held his hand up to her. "Come here," he said quietly, and she looked around, as though they might be caught. He wiggled his fingers at her and she sat, at first stiffly, legs folded in a pretzel shape, and then leaned back between his legs against the crate. He planted his feet on either side of her ribs, and began to massage her shoulders. Slowly, she uncrossed her arms, and her eyes drifted shut.

"She's going to hurt her neck like that," Anders said quietly. Elissa had her neck bent at almost a ninety-degree angle, resting her cheek on top of Nathaniel's thigh, an arm thrown over his leg up by the curve of his hip, and the other folded and hanging in a way that Anders was sure was going to give her pins and needles, but he did not attempt to shift her.

"Had to let her do it," he replied, leaning back on his hands so as not to dislodge her. "I think if I touch her she'll wake up and she won't go and find someplace else to sleep."

"You should sleep too. We should all sleep."

"Can't."

"I'll make you."

"Don't do it, mage," Nathaniel threatened without heat, not believing for one moment that Anders actually would.

"Nighty-night, Nathaniel," Anders smiled, and Nathaniel glared at him, suddenly struck by the urge to yawn.

"I hate you," he yawned.

"Don't worry, the darkspawn probably won't let you get much more than a short nap."

Nathaniel slid off the crate, jostling Elissa, but before she could truly rouse, he gathered her into his arms, pillowed her head on his shoulder, and curled together with her on the Chantry floor. They were both breathing deeply in moments, and Anders threw a small, thin, woolen blanket over their bodies before finding his own corner to curl up in, wrapped in his robes.

# # # # #

The messenger with the directions to the Mother's lair was dispatched as well – she was not going to suffer any darkspawn to live, especially those convinced that a little blood and the ravings of a madman were going to save them all. She thought of the Disciples of Andraste, and their sincere convictions. She distrusted sincere convictions.

The Mother seemed delighted they had killed The Father (who was disappointed in them, but died like any other mortal being), and proved to be a more powerful adversary – she called her childer creatures against them, and it seemed that only by the grace of old Tevinter magics (and she never thought she'd think fondly of the Imperium) did they finally put her down.

Injured, exhausted, and dreading what waited for them, they headed homewards.

They did not make it very far from the Dragonbone Wastes before they made camp. The woods made noises and they all huddled together around their fire, afraid of what the darkness might yet be hiding from them. Without any discussion on the matter, Elissa was gently directed into Nathaniel's bedroll, to curl into him for safety and warmth, and found that the smell of him, even under the lingering odor of darkspawn and childer, still lulled her to sleep.

It seemed that none of them could truly find rest, though they had all closed their eyes, and the first chirp of morning birds, before the sun rose, had them all up, stretching the dull pain from limbs and cursing the dampness of the dew that had settled on them. They had not provisioned for such an excursion – and Elissa wondered if it was the flurry of battle or if each of them had assented to accompany her to their own supposed deaths.

The walk was quiet – neither she nor they wanted to give voice to the things they all feared. Generally, when they were on the last leg of a trip back to the keep, Anders would gush about his warm bed, Sigrun would wax poetic about sweet rolls and Nathaniel would simply point out "indeed, it will be good to be home". But they had no guarantees of warm beds, sweet rolls, or even a home to return to – and so they trudged at a good pace, all eager and simultaneously not to discover what awaited them.

When the keep appeared over the horizon, she had the first good news.

"At least it still stands," she said, and they paused. From here, it looked very much like they had left it, and it almost seemed a mirage.

"We will know for certain once we get closer," Nathaniel countered, and she wanted to rail at him for stealing her hope, but it was instead his blithe realism that made her cage her fluttering hope within her chest. It would not do to wish for anything.

As they grew closer, they began to see the damage. The farmholds leading up to the keep were ravaged – there were childer corpses and a few darkspawn as well, littered liberally amongst the bodies of the people who had not gotten into the keep in time. That some of them had clearly taken down their enemies with them instead of running in fear made her so proud that she was suddenly overcome with emotion. She kept walking, and did not acknowledge it, even as the breath caught in her lungs and she had to swallow the sound and tears fell down her cheeks.

The keep itself…was in a far different state than could possibly have been observed from afar. One of the guard towers flanking the gate was being held up by a hope and a prayer – the side facing them when they had been walking had made it appear as though it was fully intact, but in truth it was the only façade that remained. The arch that had held their fine gate was destroyed and the gate in pieces, possibly as far back as two hundred meters. There were pits in the curtain wall, from what, she did not know, because it wasn't as though darkspawn traveled with trebuchets or catapults.

She stood still, observing the outside damage of the one side, frozen in place. She did not regret the lives she had helped save, but this…indeed the Vigil had become her _home_ and she dreaded entering beyond the walls. Her eyes drawn from the damage, she began to notice how many darkspawn and childer bodies were strewn across their front lawn.

"We cannot know the true extent of the damage if we do not go in, Elissa," Nathaniel said quietly, and his hand pressed to her lower back.

"I'm not cut out for this," she whispered back. "Too many people have died for my decisions."

"People have died and more will die by the decisions of those they have never seen. These people had faith in you, fought in your name," he tried to coax.

"And I let them down." Another tear fell down her face, and his hand moved from her back to take her fingers and entwine them with his.

"Come on," he insisted, and she risked a look back at Anders and Sigrun. Anders had his worry written all over his face, and Sigrun appeared sad, but steadfast. With a deep inhale, she walked in step with him and into the same place that had welcomed her with dead bodies not half a year ago, a place that had, in the meantime, become _hers_ in so many senses of the word.

There were large piles of stone where sections of the old wall had collapsed – portions that Voldrick, for all his dwarven masons, simply did not have the resources on any front to repair in time. The parts he had seen upgraded were in far better shape, and she vowed right then that he would have all the money he desired to ensure the entire compound was rebuilt to his specifications.

_If he still lives_, she thought to herself.

As they passed rubble and corpses alike, pyres extinguished and the manner of bodies unrecognizable (though it gave her a tight flash of hope, because while these darkspawn were smarter, she highly doubted they built pyres to burn the dead), she began to hear voices, noises, and dropped Nathaniel's hand to run towards them. Her companions caught on quickly, and they all fell into varying degrees of quickness behind her.

That's when she saw them. Men and women, guards and farmers alike, working side by side to unbury the armory forge.

"Commander?"

The voice was Varel's, and she had never been so happy in her entire life. She crossed the distance in leaps, and threw herself into the plain-clothed arms of _her _seneschal.

"Varel!"

He was surprised, and chuckled painfully (she could not have known about his ribs). He hugged her back, patting her like her father had once done, when he thought she was being silly. Or when he had been very glad to see her.

"It is good to see you too, Commander," he held her at arm's length to examine her. "We had thought you lost for sure," he intoned, his voice the same as always, his face impassive, but there was a twinkle in his eye that made her grin. "And I see you've brought your heroic company back with you as well, all intact," he said, and gripped Nathaniel's forearm best he could, three of his fingers wrapped tightly to prohibit their movement.

"Anders," he nodded, and looked with a smile down at the dwarf. "And Sigrun. Good to see you all."

"I knew you'd make it through, you're a tough old fox, Varel," Sigrun smiled widely, and he chuckled again, this time wincing in pain and Anders rushed to him, quickly puzzling out the favored side.

"Oh! I hurt you again! Varel, I'm so-…" she began.

"Don't worry about it," he waved her off with a modicum of irritation. He was indeed delighted to see them, and his ribs would heal.

"I'm surprised you made it out with only a few broken ribs and fingers," Anders said, channeling enough healing magic into Varel to at least relieve the pain until he could get a better look.

"I didn't – I had my arm snapped good by one of those man-sized beasties, but Velanna healed that for me after the first wave abated."

Elissa looked around, realizing Nathaniel had been doing the same. "Where is everyone else? Velanna, Oghren, Justice?"

"Velanna…did not make it, Commander."

She hung her head. She may not have liked the woman, but she had been a comrade, a fellow Warden at the very least.

"Though I am sure she was killed, we have not found her body. One of the men saw her trapped under a rockfall, but when we tried to dig her out we…did not find her. And Justice…Justice also gave his life for the Vigil."

"Maker preserve him, I hope he finds his way back," she murmured. "And…" she was almost afraid to ask.

"He is in bad shape, but he yet lives. The body had blocked entry, so we burned it, but he took down a large ogre, all by himself, and allowed many to reach safety in the first wave.

"How many survive?"

"A few, Commander," he intoned somberly. "But a great many more than any of us expected after so many days and even some nights of fighting without rest. They came up from the ground, and ate their own dead, some mutating into fiendish creatures before our very eyes!"

"Indeed, I've seen them. Though their…mother, I suppose, is dead."

"They stopped coming two nights ago, and we've been looking for survivors since. Anders," he began, and looked up at the mage.

"Absolutely, where are you keeping the wounded?"

"In the main hall," he began, and Anders headed off that direction. Varel watched him go before continuing. "While they were able to climb the walls and break down many of the doors, the main hall remains intact. It had the strongest doors, and the survivors all barricaded themselves inside. We had little warning, and saved as many of the farmers and commonfolk as we could," he informed her, still sounding as though he had failed.

"Varel, you have done admirably. I could not have asked for more."

"Maverlies and a small handful of guards were charged with protecting the commonfolk, so they yet live. The mason and his…brother," the word came out like a bad taste, and she had to smile, because Varel had never liked Dworkin, "as well as the armorers, one of your new merchants, and Woolsey made it to the hall before they barred the doors from the inside. Your qunari merchant took up arms and was killed, but not before he slew a great many foes."

She nodded. Despite his insistence that he'd been exiled and was no longer qunari, he had clearly fought like one, and her chest tightened with missing Sten, who had not made her any promises to keep in touch, and whom she both hoped and feared ever coming across again.

"Commander, what of Amaranthine? What of the city?"

More and more survivors had discovered her return, and they gathered, within earshot, in small groups, waiting idly for news of loved ones or news at all. She turned around a bit to take them all in – they were a small, pitiful group, no more than thirty. From nearly thirty guards still at the keep and over a hundred servants and small farmers within the walls plus the forty or so within spitting distance of the keep, it was such a tiny number. She almost hoped for a great deal of wounded.

"The city still stands!" she informed them, and they cheered. "I do not know the names of the survivors, but many perished to the darkspawn these last few days. There were survivors amongst the guard and the city dwellers, but they had been besieged before we even arrived, and suffered many losses. We shall all have to band together to repair our homes, and find the lost and wounded, and offer as much help as we can to whomever requires it. We _will_ pull through this, as the Vigil, Amaranthine, and her people have pulled through every other disaster and catastrophe for ages before this one!"

Her rousing speech empowered her few remaining people, and she, despite her aching body, pitched right in with the rest of them, and they all worked like a well-oiled machine, uncovering areas and stacking stone in piles, clearing pathways and searching for survivors.

Voldrik was on hand, flitting to and fro, deeming this area or that unsafe or "safe enough" (which was often followed by derogative mumblings about barbaric architecture), while Anders was in and out directing the removal and repurposing of survivors. Those who had been healed were eager to be given tasks, but he had no desire for his hard work to go to waste, and so he mostly directed them to smaller things like lighting fires and investigating areas that would need to be cleared rather than doing any of the heavy lifting themselves.

When night fell, they relit a large bonfire near the interior gate, and lean-tos were constructed from bedsheets, piles of stone, and bits of wood that had filled the two layers of the "barbarian" stone walls. Elissa felt a part of her wanted to sleep outside with her people, but it was a very small part. The bigger part wanted her own bed, and, egads, a _bath_.

The latter was impossible, but she managed to give herself a good wash with water right up from the well – she got first dibs on the makeshift wash basin and insisted everyone present should be allowed a bit of a wash. She thanked the Maker that she had little enough modesty so that the majority of her body was wiped clean beneath her tunic and her drawstring trousers. When she got up to her room, she saw that the pitcher and bowl that had been put out for her that morning long ago was still in place, and while the water had long since lost its freshness, she used what little was there to finish her bathing in private.

She had just changed out of her dirty, torn tunic and muslin trousers into a long tunic she had come to prefer for sleeping in when there came a knock on her door.

Nathaniel had clearly also had a turn at the washbasin, as his hair was no longer matted with darkspawn blood, and he had his natural scent back rather than the unfortunate stench of childer. She went to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head against his chest and closing her eyes.

"We still have so much to do, but I want nothing more than to sleep for a _week_."

He chuckled, and she smiled when she felt it rumble through his chest. "I could find it in me to support that plan."

"Good. Though maybe not so good," she pulled away and looked up at him. "You may need to disagree with me here or I really _won't_ get out of bed for the next week."

He leaned in and kissed her. "I could think of worse things."

She let him kiss her again, her lips closed before she pulled away again. "No. No, you are not allowed to make me want you. I _hurt_ everywhere. I've no energy to ravish you," she informed him matter-of-factly.

"Oh, so you can admit now?" he raised a brow in surprise, and she could hear the 'I-told-you-so' in his voice.

"Lots of death and almost dying does that to me, apparently," she said, and laid her head on his chest again.

"Well then I suppose the ravishing will have to wait. Come," he said, and led her to her bed, and followed after her as she climbed under the quilt.

Their bodies relaxed for the first true time in a week, and she had no more thoughts before she was stolen into the Fade.


	12. Chapter 12

WARNING: This chapter gets a little sexy. Okay, a lot sexy. This chapter is NSFW and rated M.

A/N: It's been a swell ride! Suspect the sequel to this will have to be posted elsewhere if all this LU RedBotton nonsense continues. Because I'll tell ya right now, Nate and Elissa are going to boink, and while I try to keep it (mostly) classy, recreational sex with any explicitness is apparently frowned upon by these LU morons. So read this now because the bot might be trying to find fics that call them morons. Ya'll have been great, and I appreciate all the fantastic reviews and constructive feedback. Peace!

Disclaimer: It belongs to Bioware, obviously.

* * *

It was past noon when they roused themselves from bed, their bodies logy with sleep, but their aches now in the stage where they simply needed to be worked out and chased away.

"I don't want to get out of this bed," she mumbled.

During the night, they had separated, and he lay on his side facing away from her, and she on her stomach, her face shoved into the down pillow.

"Then don't," he offered from the other side of the bed.

"Instigator," she accused. "I have to get up. So. Much. To. Do!"

"If they've made it this long without you, I'm sure they'll survive a little longer."

"Stoppit," she said, and reached out a hand to swat him. "You're making me feel insignificant."

"Have it your way," he said, and was silent again.

She tilted her head, because it seemed that while she could sleep in a way that one might assume would suffocate, now that she was partially awake, she needed fresh flowing air. She peeked one eye open, and indeed the sun was high in the sky. She huffed loudly and threw back the quilt, exposing Nathaniel's bare calf, which was pulled back into warmth with no time to lose. She splashed her face with the dingy leftover water and pulled her hair back in a messy bun. One foot, then the other, went into her working breeches, and she pulled on a man's tunic and tucked it in. Her boots went on as they always did, one at a time, and by the time she was finished dressing, he was still abed. She leaned over his body and patted his leg.

"Come on, get up. If I have to get up, so do you."

"I seem to recall that was your choice. I by no means participated in a consensus," he informed her with his eyes still closed, and turned his face away from her, towards the center of the bed.

"Come _on_," she said, and reached out for him again, this time to shake a shoulder. His arm darted out and grabbed her around the waist, hooking her and pulling her bodily into the bed at an awkward angle, and she yelped, draped half on him and half hanging off the bed, clutched tightly in the circle of his arm pinning her to his ribs.

He turned over and pulled her under the quilt. "Morning," he nuzzled her ear, his eyes still closed.

"Afternoon," she chuckled. "It's definitely afternoon."

"Then it's almost evening, and almost time to go to bed again," he reasoned.

"I have never known you to be such a slugabed!"

He opened one eye, and she had turned in his arm to face him, pillowing her face on her hands while still keeping her boots carefully off the bed. "And how many mornings have you woken up in my bed to know?"

"A few, now," she smirked.

"And how many of those few have not been under circumstances of distress in some manner?"

She had to admit, "none."

"Exactly," he informed her, closing his eye. His mouth was pressed into his pillow and his words comprehensible but muffled. "You know nothing of my habits."

"Well then maybe I need to acquaint myself with them."

The eye opened again. "I've been trying to tell you that for weeks."

"I've been intractable."

"So I've noticed."

"And I've decided not to be anymore."

"Good to know."

"But before I can get back in bed with you, you've got to get out of it."

"Why is that?"

"Principal of the thing. Have to get out of bed before you can get back into it."

He pulled her closer and kissed her. "Morning."

"Morning again," she giggled. "You going to get up now?"

"Maybe."

She snorted lightly and squirmed out of his grasp, and patted his rump under the quilt. "Now, please," she said, and left the room. It was only a matter of time before he convinced himself that he wasn't as lazy as he pretended to be, and joined her downstairs, searching for breakfast.

# # # # # #

They found no more survivors, and there were no fewer than four pyres ablaze with the dead. Darkspawn were burned separately from those who had died in defense of the Vigil, but there were too many for proper funerals. The darkspawn pyre burned a ways outside the gate, and the rickety wooden pull-behind they had piled the bodies on was burned as well.

The lay sister who had taken up ministry of the folk more local to the Vigil had died in the fighting (apparently taking up arms against darkspawn was not as strange among Chantry sisters as she had been made to believe), so there was none but those left to offer bits of the Chant to their dead.

Though the day had been somber with death and damage assessment, the evening quickly became quite raucous. There was wine and ale aplenty, and a renewed sense of camaraderie amongst the survivors. Only a handful had retired to the main hall to sleep it off in their makeshift barracks – though some of them still had homes to go to, no one yet felt safe sleeping any more than a sprint's distance from the keep, and as their numbers remained small (around sixty-five including women and children), there was still room in the main hall for them all to lay their heads.

Sitting next to Elissa, Nathaniel slipped his hand under the table and laid it on her thigh.

"I'm going to bed."

She stared at him. "Oh?"

"Mm," he squeezed her leg and she swallowed her sudden sharp fear and nodded.

She rose from the table, and bid her goodnights to those in her immediate company, trusting that the word would be passed along. She was halfway up the stairs before she looked back and saw him speaking with Woolsey. She made it the rest of the way up and was already in her sleeping garment when he joined her.

He hesitated at the door, watching her, and she too stared at him, the bed in the space between them seeming large and significant. They had slept together several times, but _slept together_ they had somehow skirted around. She blamed the circumstances. She had not felt in the mood for such things in between the fighting and the fighting, and oh, the almost dying. Not to mention the walking.

She crossed the distance first, and slid her hand into his hair, fitting her mouth over his, tasting wine and mutton and carrots on his tongue. She unbuttoned his vest, pushing it over his shoulders as his hands roamed her body. With a tug amidst kisses, they separated long enough to raise his arms and allow her to pull his tunic over his head. He steadied himself with his hands on her waist to kick off his boots (the cuffs of his dark linen trousers which had been tucked into the boots, fell and skimmed her toes which made her smile into his mouth), and began walking her towards the bed. He contorted his body, removing one sock and then the other, and they both slid onto her bed. He loomed over her, and looked down threading his fingers with hers, leaning in for another kiss when she pulled her face away.

"Just…slow, okay?" she whispered, and he paused, taking in her gaze. He didn't make her say it, didn't make her admit a word, simply closed the distance between them to taste her lips.

He nipped at her collarbone, and she inhaled sharply, her fingers gripping his upper arms tightly.

"Like that, do you?" he said in a low voice, and she couldn't help the way her spine twitched and her shoulders bowed when he used that tone. All she could reply was an "mmhmm" that turned into a moan when he scraped his teeth there as his hand slid up into her long tunic, brushing over a breast.

She brought her knees up, cradling his hips between her thighs, and his free hand slid up one leg, from knee to thigh, pushing the fabric of her sleeping garment up to her hip. His fingers briefly brushed the tender flesh between her thigh and her center, and she shuddered. His lips covered her own, his mouth stealing her breath and swallowing her sounds as his fingers gently explored, learning that which he had been previously denied.

Her hands held tight to his hair, though they loosened when he tried to pull from her lips. He had pushed her tunic up around her chest, and she was bare below him. He stopped, and just looked at her, searching her eyes for permission.

"Do it," she said, and with her help, he stripped her of her garment, exposing all of her skin to him. She was marked with silvery scars, some which had colored in the sun so they were dark marks, no longer shiny with scar tissue. She was still well-muscled, but her time in Denerim had lost her some of her definition in a few places, namely a softer stomach. His hands could knead at her ribs in the bit of padding there, and her inner thighs had also lost a bit of their fine toned shape. She was okay with the little bits here and there like that, so long as her skill was unaffected – she could still trounce any of the other Wardens or any of the keep's guard, as well as the king himself last she checked, so she found herself often looking at the softer bits, remembering them as links to her younger days. The days when swordplay was fun, as opposed to life and death, she had been capable, but soft – softer than this, and she wondered how she could possibly have existed in such an untrained state. It made her laugh.

With her last barrier removed, he remained clothed in his dyed woven-linen trousers, and she reached her hands from his lower back down past his waistband, pulling him into her.

"Careful, thought we were going to take this slow," he said, biting her earlobe gently.

"Can't," she huffed against his jaw. "Waited too long," she said, and he chuckled, low in his throat, and reached for the laces, the back of his hand warmed by her heat as he untied his trousers. She pulled her knees higher, and used her toes to shove them away from his body.

"You're awfully nimble with those," he said, kissing her again.

"Been tied up one too many times," she offered, and held his face between her hands, kissing him as he twisted his hips and legs to free himself of the trousers. One of her hands slid across his shoulders, and her arm held him, squashed against her breasts, as her other hand threaded into his hair. She nipped his lip, and he made a sound that tingled in her nerves, moving his mouth back to her neck, where he sucked and scraped teeth and nibbled, making her writhe beneath him.

Thus distracted, he reached one hand down to her center, and gently stroked her open, her knees falling apart on instinct. He ran a finger around the sensitive spot, slicking the digit as he traced a path towards her entrance. Her breathing was labored, and she tightened her hold on his shoulders as he slid one finger into her. He kept busy, kept her partially distracted with teeth and tongue as the finger slowly stroked in and out, and he felt her expand enough to pull out and slide two fingers back in. She tensed, but he persisted, asking permission and seeking forgiveness for the pain to come with kisses and reassuring words like "love you" and "let me" and "breathe". With two fingers, he had a bit more ease in movement, and he curled them as he pulled away, changing the pace as she whined and panted, her eyes squeezed shut. He felt her muscles flutter around his fingers, and increased the pace, teasing her inside, trying to coax the completion out of her. He knew she needed to relax if he was to minimize the pain (which he was made to understand would be no small thing), and with a "there, just there, come on," whispered in her ear, she clenched around his fingers, and dug her nails into his shoulder with her release.

Her legs fell open limply, and she abandoned her grip on him as her muscles abandoned her call, overwhelmed.

"Tell me when to stop," he said, and she just rolled her head in an approximation of a nod as he slicked himself in her, poising himself at her entrance.

A part of him felt…wrong, but then he reminded herself that then or now, she had chosen him for this, and there was a certain degree of masculine pride he could not keep from surging through his body at the thought of her, untouched beneath him. He pushed into her just a little, and she whimpered, as he was thicker than his two fingers. She gripped his arms, pulling her hips almost away from him, but he laid one hand on her hip as the other caused her to spasm with aftershocks, circling her nub with a moistened fingertip. There was a bit of give and he tried to sink deeper into her. Her jaw tightened, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, and he felt a tight resistance, could see her tensing in the whites of her knuckles and the way she held her breath. He moved his hand from her hip to her face, running his fingers down her cheek. She opened her eyes and looked at him, and he kissed her with eyes open, drawing away just as he pushed past the resistant muscle, and she let out a little yelp of pain, her grip on his arms sure to leave bruises.

"Stop. Stop," she said, gritting her teeth, and he kissed her as she inhaled and exhaled heavily, breathing through the pain.

"I love you," he reminded her, and she looked at him, her eyes glistening but not a tear shed, and he began to move within her. With short, slow strokes, he felt her nails likely to break his skin, and moved carefully within her, as gently as he could, balanced on his forearms, whispering to her and kissing her as though it would take away the pain.

She had pleasured herself before – it was not as though this was entirely foreign to her, but for all that she had been told as a younger woman that it would be painful, but then she would enjoy it, at the moment she was trying not to sob. It _burned_, dull pain flaring outwards in waves, and her instinct was to pull away from him, but he would not have it.

The few times she had talked to Leliana about it, when she had been considering Alistair as a partner, she had spoken of this act in only good words. And the bard had certainly seemed to enjoy sharing Zevran's tent most nights. She felt so stupid, being this childish about it, but watching him as he moved in her – his brow furrowed in concentration as he tried to be careful of her, the sweat beading on his temple; he was beautiful like this. She drew him down for a kiss, their bodies sinking into each other the way they were meant to, and her hips involuntarily rose to meet him with a spark of sensation. She broke away, slightly surprised, a little bit of moisture between their lips.

"Do that again," she said, and his slow, unbreakable rhythm was interrupted as he lengthened his strokes. The burning was still there, but on top of it, or underneath it, or around it, maybe, was something much better, and that was what she wanted more of.

He heeded her, having reached the point of feeling truly horrible because she had clearly _not_ been enjoying herself – there was no hiding it, and his limited experience had been generally positive, so he was at a loss as to how to fix it. With her encouragement, pulling him closer to her, and wrapping her legs around his hips, he slid into her as far as he was able, finally entirely where he felt some instinctual _need_ to be – to never part from her, to be in her like this always. He drew out and pushed back in, and after a couple of moments, she encouraged him to increase his speed, and he complied, shortly after feeling her clench around him in quick, sweet tightness, bringing him to his edge. He shifted his weight on his arms, and reached one hand back between them, circling the sensitive mound again as he snapped his hips to meet her, his breaths coming in heavy gasps. He heard her whimper, this time in pleasure rather than pain, and felt her tighten around him spastically as he withdrew. She squeezed him almost to the point of release, and it was the work of a few short, deep thrusts before he was unable to hold back any longer, and pushed at her, as though he could crawl inside her body, spending himself in her.

He collapsed in stages, trying to keep his weakened muscles from collapsing, from crushing her, and rolled to the side, bringing her to him as he slid wetly from her body. He held her against him with one arm as the other sought the blanket and pulled it over them to keep them warm as the sweat cooled on their bodies.

She filled her lungs, her face pressed to his chest as his fingers idly twisted in her hair.

"Did I hurt you…too much?" he asked, and she pressed her lips to his chest.

"I think it was going to hurt no matter what," she replied, her eyes drifting shut. "But not too much. I'll be…" she mused, "sore tomorrow. I can feel it already."

He laid a kiss on her forehead, and she nuzzled into his embrace sleepily. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"I'm…not," she replied, and then her body went slack as sleep claimed her. He was not far behind, and soon joined her in the Fade.

FIN (or is it?)


End file.
